The following details my chest, shoulder and triceps workout from Wednesday night at Kirkland Gold’s Gym.  It’s been a rough week as I try to keep up training with a nasty head cold, but I’m slowly beginning to turn the corner.  Unfortunately I passed it along to Christina.

 

As you know if you’ve been following my training logs I’ve been backing off the intensity since my competitions a month ago.  I continue to mostly chase a pump, although I toyed around with a little heavier weight on chest tonight and it felt pretty good.  Here is the workout…

 

Flat Dumbbell Press

 

Set 1 x 12 reps with 65lbs

Set 2 x 10 reps with 75lbs

Set 3 x 8 reps with 85lbs

Set 4 x 8 reps with 95lbs

Set 5 x 7 reps with 100lbs

Set 6 x 7 reps with 110lbs

Set 7 x 7 reps with 120lbs

 

*Do plenty of warm-up sets before going heavy.  The key is to press to ¾ lock-out to save your elbow joints and maintain continuous tension.  I counted this as 3 working sets.

 

Cable/Machine Press

 

I used a unilateral Life Fitness cable chest press machine here – FYI.

 

Set 1 x 8 reps with 90lbs

Set 2 x 8 reps with 100lbs

Set 3 x 8 reps with 110lbs

Set 4 x 6 reps (failure) with 120lbs

 

*Press to lock-out and flex your chest as hard as possible on this exercise.  Move up in weight doing sets of 8 reps until you fail.  I personally pressed the handles a bit high to engage more upper pec.

 

Dips w/Chains

 

I used a single chain here similar to these:  https://www.elitefts.com/eliteftstm-pair-of-5-8-chains.html.

 

Set 1 x 8 reps with 1 chain

Set 2 x 8 reps with 1 chain

Set 3 x 8 reps with 1 chain

Set 4 x 6 reps (failure) with 1 chain

 

*Control the eccentric and get a good stretch at the bottom.  I aimed for 4 sets of 8 reps, but failed to get all 8 on my final set.

 

Machine Rear Laterals

 

Set 1 x 20 reps with 110lbs

Set 2 x 20 reps with 110lbs

Set 3 x 20 reps with 110lbs

Set 4 x 20 reps with 110lbs

 

*Hold the contraction for a split second on the first 10 reps and then pump out the final 10 reps.

 

Single Arm Cable Side Laterals

 

Set 1 x 20 reps with 25lbs

Set 2 x 17 reps with 25lbs

Set 3 x 15 reps with 25lbs

Set 4 x 12 reps with 25lbs

 

*The key here is to do one arm at a time and alternate basically performing your sets non-stop.  That’s the reason you see the reps dropping while the weight remained constant because the goal is cumulative fatigue.

 

Barbell Over-&-Backs

 

Set 1 x 10 reps with 80lbs

Set 2 x 10 reps with 80lbs

Set 3 x 10 reps with 80lbs

 

*Cap off the delt burn with 3 sets here.  Remember the bar just clears your head as you lower to nose level in the front and ear level in the back.  Over and back counts as 1 rep.

 

Triceps Giant Set w/Separate Handles

 

I used D handles with a long strap or you can use standard D handles with a few carabiners attached to each – FYI.

 

Pronate Grip Press Down x 10 reps with 60lbs

Immediately followed by…

Supinate Grip Press Down x 10 reps with 60lbs

Immediately followed by…

Pronate Overhead Extension x 10 reps with 60lbs

 

*This will blow up your triceps.  Remember to spread the handles and flex hard in the contracted position on all reps.  Your reps may drop, but do this giant set for 4 rounds!

 

That concluded this chest, shoulder and triceps workout.

 

Train hard!

Mark