My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. Loved the training didn't like the competing aspect so I went back to my first love, powerlifting. Injuries have been a part of my life ever since I can remember and were the biggest reason for leaving the sport (I can no longer hold a squat bar on my back). I have  degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs in places I didn't know you could get them, planter facetious, tendinitis and bursitis. I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical.  I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story. 

You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE. 

My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come. 

* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.

Shoulders and Biceps

Standing side raises ... Six sets of fifteen reps with about fifteen pounds. Not a whole lot of weight. These were all warm up sets. The first couple sets, the range of motion was about a quarter range. Second two sets, about mid-range. Last two sets, full range.

Standing dumbbell swings, which are short side raises. Just a swinging motion from my legs about four, five, maybe six inches out to the sides and then, swing back in. Started with thirty pounds for three sets of twenty five reps, went to fifty pounds for two sets of thirty reps and then, did two sets with sixty pounds for thirty five reps.

Standing rack presses with the angle grip bar. The way this exercise is performed is I use the isometric rack, set the pins up just under chin level and press the bar from the pins to an overhead position. While pressing the bar, I'm also pushing the bar into the rack, trying to strip the paint off of the rack while pressing up. I call this "stripping the rack".

Started with the bar for three sets of fifteen repetitions. This is a really hard exercise for me to do because I don't have full range of motion in my right arm, so the best I can typically do is about three quarters of the way up. If I am pushing into the rack hard enough and duck my head under, I can get a little bit more range of motion than I typically could get if I just had to do a standing press.

After the warm up sets and freeing the shoulder up a little bit to get a greater range of motion, I added a dime per side for three sets of fifteen. I then jumped to twenty five pounds per side for six sets of six.

Rear delt cable pull aparts.  This exercise I'm using the straight handle tsunami grips, which are basically just five inches in length that has a grip on it. It's just a straight handle. It's not a double D handle. It's like a stick. I put one of those on each one of the cables on the cable ... I guess you would call it a cable crossover unit.

It's just a double cable unit. Then I grabbed the opposite cable to the opposite arm and pulled the cables and the handles back like a rear delt raise. Two warm up sets of fifteen reps, four work sets of ten reps and then going back down half the weight of the work sets for two more sets of twenty repetitions.

Seated shoulder raise machine. This is a seated side raise machine. Used a moderate weight to where I could lift the stack about half range of motion and then, I did an iso hold as long as I possibly could, then let that turn into a super slow negative, fighting it all the way down. If I was to guess how long I fought the weight, it's probably somewhere between sixty to seventy five seconds.

Swiss pulldown handle for standing cable front raises. One warm up set of fifteen reps and then, I went to my work sets. I did two work sets of eight reps per grip. I started with the outside handles, did eight repetitions, went with the middle handle for eight repetitions and then, the close handle for eight repetitions and did two sets of that.

 Slayer  bar curls. Two warm up sets with a ten pound plate per side of fifteen repetitions. Progressively worked up one ten pound plate per side until I had five plates per side for two sets of six reps. I then dropped down to three plates per side for three sets of eight to ten reps, each set going to failure.

Standing cable face curls. On this exercise, I used a reverse grip with a zigzag handle and performed essentially what would be a standing reverse curl or a standing face curl with a reverse grip. Two warm up sets of ten reps, four work sets of ten to twelve reps, each set going to failure.

Preacher curls on the glute ham raise. Using one arm at a time and doing double sets, did four work sets of ten repetitions for the first round and four to six repetitions for the second round.

Dumbbell hammer curls. Two sets, twenty repetitions.