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Changes, Changes!

I have updated the workouts for gaining 10 pounds in 30 days. Don’t worry, not much has changed. I’ve replaced only a few exercises but I did enhance the hell out of Shoulder Day. That happens to be my favorite day because I see the most gains and results.

Monday is Back day which also includes tricep and bicep work. It has 2 tricep exercises and 2 bicep exercises. By the time you get to Friday, it will have been four days since you concentrated on those muscles. Sure, you worked out the triceps on chest day, but only with two exercises, Bench Press and Incline Bench Press. In both of those, your triceps are doing the least of the work. Your pecs and delts take up most of the work unless you use a close grip which we are not using.

Shoulder day previously had some bicep work but no triceps. Now, I added a bunch of triceps exercises in 3 sets of Quadruple Supersets. This way, you really take both muscle groups to their max many times. I did this because of the massive pump I got when I really max out both biceps and triceps during the same workout. Add that to the massive shoulder workout, and your arms will be set for maximum gains. You’ll have that horse shoe shape in your triceps in no time and your shoulders will be able to shine faster when the biceps and triceps are also pulling in opposite directions.

I also reworked Ab day to add better exercises and I removed the ball pass. It was a good follower to crunches but I felt that hanging leg raises were an absolute must as well as what I call “Plank Madness”. Planks are great for working out your obliques, while the leg lifts will blast your bottom ab muscles. You can still do it in about 10 minutes; I just did it last night and when I was done, I could clearly see my individual abs poking through. I did 2 sets.

The last thing I changed was the running on Leg day. It used to be a 20 minutes jog on the incline setting but now, I shortened it to a 10 minute HIIT session. I don’t want to spend another 20 minutes after nearly an hour in the gym. 10 I can handle.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you’ve try this new ab workout or the shoulder day, let me know how you felt!

Cheers!

______ ** ______

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Sat, Nov 27, 2010 Push/pull Circuit

Push/pull Circuit

I basically did my 100 Deep Pushups, 50 Pullups circuit but this time, I did Deadlifts for de legs. No long jumps this time. Instead, I did a ton of abs. It went like this:

Pullups
Body Rows on Hz bar
Deep Chair Pushups
Bent over Dumbbell Reverse Flies
Deadlifts 6-8 reps
Abs variety (box crunches, vertical crunches, vertical toe touches, Leg Lifts, Windshield Wipers, Bicycles)
Then, repeat the whole thing. I repeated 3X, but continued with the the remaining Pushups and Pullups.

I did the Reverse Flies (or “Rear Delt Flies”) to work on my Rotator Cuffs and Rear Delts since it’s important to strengthen them when working on the pecs, remember? Great workout. Felt amazing afterward. I like seeing immediate results from doing that many Deep Chair Pushups. In this case, I can see that line I mentioned before; the one going from the center-top of the chest to a little lower near the pits. It comes from blasting the upper pecs. I also like how these pushups really give volume to the outer pecs by the pits.

I have messed up my forearms a bit. Grabbing heavy things hurts my forearm tendon near the elbow on both arms! This includes pullups and curls. I use Tiger Balm to relieve the pain but I might have to lay off those exercises ’til they heal. Damn. My grip is suffering a bit too from that. I notice it while doing the pullups and deadlifts.

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Friday, Nov 19. 10 in30 Shoulders/Mc Donalds, more food

Fantastic workout right from the 10 in 30 workouts! Friday is Shoulder and Arms day and that’s what I did. Here it is with slight changes:

• Standing Military Press
• Upright Rows ^superset

The rest were more of a circuit with hardly any rest in between. Alternating between shoulders and curls, then triceps.

• Seated Arnold Press
• Dumbbell curls
• Hammer DB curls^super
• Heavy Bent-arm Lat Raises
• Dumbbell curls/Pronated DB curls super
• Lateral Raise 666
• Cable Tricep Press
• Rope Tricep Press ^super

Major pump going on when you do both biceps and triceps back to back with no rest. Add shoulders to that and you’ll see major definition in the upper arms by the time you’re done! That’s why I combine shoulders with arms, to really work out and define the upper arm muscles. Biceps look better when the triceps are also pulling, and they both look better when the delts are all puffy and what not, haha.

That was during my lunch hour as usual. Right after, I had a grilled chicken caesar salad from Mc Donalds with a Coke Zero/Cherry Coke Zero mix from their awesome machine. I only drink those and sometimes add some Diet Dr Pepper—no sugar drinks!
Joy Machine. Gain muscle, lose fat fast!

When I got to work, I heated up a Tyson chicken breast to add to my salad since the chicken they provide is not enough.
Tyson Chicken Breastesses.

I finished my lunch with a half cup of unsalted mixed nuts from Target  and some raw goji berries. JOYYY.
NUTS! Gain muscle fast.

____****____

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When you mess up.

What kind of a person are you—a quitter or a keep-onner?

I often hear people say things like, “Well, I already messed up my diet in the morning, so there goes that! I guess I can eat whatever I want now.” They somehow justify being bad for the entire day because they messed up once. This is also applied to many other things in life, not just diet and workouts. I don’t get this. Is it the quitter types that think this way? Is it the person that is just looking for an excuse to quit? “Whew! I’m so glad I messed up,” he thinks, “Now I have an excuse to not even try for the rest of the day.” What’s up with that?

Keep on keeping on!
If you do happen to mess up on one meal, or miss one workout, don’t let the quitter thought emerge. Don’t let that be an excuse to eat like a friggin pig the rest of the day as if you did something to deserve it. What did you do? You fucked up. So you get rewarded? wtf? How about, you give yourself a reward on Sunday after you’ve been bad-ass with your diet and workouts the rest of the week? Sounds better, right?

If you do have a “bad” breakfast with too much fat or sugar or something, you can still offset it or even completely undo it and still come out on top for that day. Calories in versus calories out, remember? So, you can eat something bad like chili fries or some cake for someone’s birthday at work, or a high-calorie and high sugar Cadillac Margarita (my favorite), and still be ok by the end of the day or the next. How? Well you know that you’re just going to have that many more bad calories to burn off that day. No problem; Calories in versus calories out. Double your HIT cardio into two sessions that day or the next and be good the rest of the week.

It’s important not to be a Nazi about your diet and end up being anti-social. If it’s someone’s birthday, and your co-workers are going out and will have drinks, and cake, be sure to join them and don’t make a big issue about your diet. Keep it lo-pro! keep it to a minimum without letting people know you’re doing that and don’t mention anything about your diet, or something silly like, “Well, I’m just going to have to run extra long tonight!” Why make those that are going to eat big portions feel bad? It’s a birthday celebration, stupid! haha Just be cool about it and especially, don’t be preachy.

Same goes for your workouts. You have a bad week or weekend like me in Vegas, well pick up where you left off and work a little harder each time during the following week. Don’t resort to shooting yourself in the foot by not working out the whole damn week because you messed up the first half. It’s so easy to lose muscle, yet so hard to gain muscle and even harder to lose fat, right?! So don’t give that fact a boost by loosing an entire week!

Cheers, keep-onners!

_____

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Sat, Nov 13, Great workout in Vegas!

I’m in Vegas, baby! Had a fantastic, super-hard, long, complete workout in the Trump Towers’ gym. Badass gym they have! Have you seen those “Technogym” machines? I read about them a while back and this is the second time I got to use them. They are really cool treadmills, bikes, and eliptical machines that have a computer touch-screen monitor on them. You can watch full tv and control everything from there. They do all kinds of other things like remember your stats, programs, etc. but I just used the eliptical for 10 minutes of HIIT.

Before the the cardio, I did a badass circuit of:

  • Seated bench press
  • Dumbbell curls drop-sets of 3 + hammers and reverse curls (palms down to work the forearms)
  • Low dip pushups with feet up on bosu ball
  • Tricep pushdowns narrow v-bar
  • Tricep overhead extensions singular dumbbell
  • Dumbell raises to arm pits trifecta with arm curls and lighter hammers
  • Tricep straight bar pushdowns with 1 second hold at bottom
  • pushups. flat on floor
  • Seated bent over dumbbell lateral raises (strengthens rear delts to counter the heavy chest workout)
  • Cable rotator cuff  extensions – sides (again, must reinforce the rear delts when working out chest)
  • Cable rotator cuff extensions – top

This was followed by the eliptical workout: 10 minutes on the interval setting

I immediately drank a 25g protein Muscle Milk. Chocolate, thank you very much. Plus a complimentary green apple for the simple carbs and vitamin C hit. Felt like a million bucks by the time I finished my shake and got half way through my apple.

Lunch was freaking great as well. Angus cheeseburger with fries (I’m on vacation!) from the Neiman Marcus cafe in the mall. I walked around a hell of a lot so I’m pretty sure I burned more calories than I consumed here in Vegas. Especially since my only other meal was dinner at 11:30 pm. Yes, I ate terribly as far as multiple meals go. At least, my late night supper consisted of a New York steak and 2 eggs.

IS THAT ENOUGH PROTEIN FOR YOU?!

_____

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Thurs, Nov 11: Another Circuit- Legs, Chest, and Back

Another circuit today. Mixed it up with Legs, Chest, and Back. Push/pull baby!

Deadlifts 3x
Pullups – Added assisted pullups after maxing out on regular ones 4x
Incline Bench on Hammer Machine 4x
Pushups 3x
Narrow Rows 3x, Wide rows 2x
Cable Xovers 3x

No cardio. Ran out of time and was way too hungry. Had a Grilled chicken caesar from Mc Donalds after my protein shake (25g protein) and an apple. 2.5 hours later, had edmame (cooked soy beans).

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Deep Push Ups! Long Jumps! Circuit training.

She’s raising her feet to make her deep push ups even harder and more effective. Joy.

I’ve been doing a quick, fantastic circuit of different bodypart exercises including the fantastic deep push ups along with some explosive cardio. No rest until you finish #4, then rest for one minute.
Use a countdown timer.

 

 

 

3 sets of:

  1. Barbell Squats – As I’ve preached before, if you don’t have a squat rack use a small enough weight that you can easily press over your head when you’re done with squats.
  2. Deep Chair Push ups – 2 child chairs around 16″ off the ground + a 16″ step for my feets. Let your body go WAY down past your hands. These super deep push ups build your pecs like a MOFO!
  3. Pullups – ’til failure
  4. Long Jumps – Stand with both feet together, squat down slightly, swing the arms forward and jump as long as you can, not necessarily as high as you can. As soon as you land with both feet, squat way down to absorb the impact, then spring up like a crazed monkey swinging your hands, and long-jump again. 12 jumps, baby! 

TIP: as you land, lean forward a lot since your momentum is taking you forward anyway. If you don’t, you might feel like you’re going to fall backward when your feet hit the ground. Leaning forward on the landing will allow you to continue jumping many times in a row. These absolutely killed me.

LONG JUMPS!

Be sure to squat all the way down before you spring back up and swing those arms so you get distance AND height, ok?

DEEP PUSH UPS!

^ These are fantastic! But you don’t have to raise yourself that high though; just as long as your chest goes really deep without making contact with the floor.

They’re also called “Atlas Pushups”, named after Mr. Charles Atlas. I actually learned these from his program too. He taught to do these morning and night. I don’t remember how many sets, but you’ll definitely see major pec improvement with these! They round-out your pecs and especially build up the sides and middle giving your chest that split in the middle. Plus, if you position the chairs so that your hands are farther out in front of you, it’ll give you the angled lines going from your shoulders up toward your center chest. That’s because you’d be doing the incline equivalent which builds up your upper pecs. They also widen up your chest by building up the outer sides of your pecs.

And she’s raising her feet higher than her hands which is GREAT. By raising her feet, she’s ensuring that she’s doing the equivalent of straight bench press instead of keeping her feet and hands at the same height, which would resemble floor pushups. The angle of the arms to the body when doing floor pushups actually give you DECLINE pushups which mostly work out your bottom pecs.

That is why you should raise your feet so that your body is parallel to the floor, and perpindicular to your arms. This way, you’ll mostly work out your MID PECS, which in my opinion, is better than working out your lower pecs. If this is hard to understand or you think I’m full of shit, picture her feet being raised even more and pay attention to the angle of her arms in relation to her body. See how her arms are rotating at the shoulders and the elbows are moving closer to her head.

Now, mentally turn her upside down. See how it resembles an INCLINE press?

Incline Bench Press


INCLINE BENCH PRESS!

Either way, it’s the deepness of the pushup that really makes this a damn good exercise. I’d even go so far as to say…

deep push ups are better than bench press!

Me after many sets of deep push ups!

Oh my goodness. Now I’ve done it! I’ve disrespected the beloved “KING OF CHEST EXERCISES”.

WHY such a crazy idea??

Because with bench press, you’ll avoid maxing out for fear of dropping that shit on your neck! So, you’ll stop early, leaving a few reps in the tank. With deep pushups, or even regular pushups, you’ll go ’til you can’t do any more, ’til failure and then still do a couple more half way pushups just to be sure you maxed out.

Do 3 sets of deep push ups—always ’til failure—and look in the mirror when you’re done, preferably with overhead or side lighting. Pleasantly surprised? Slight chuckle? You’re welcome.

NOW KEEP DOING THEM, BIFF! _____**_____

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Consistency rules.

front abs biceps

front abs bicepsIf you are new to working out regularly, there is something you should be aware of. These workouts are pretty tough. They are long. And with only 6-8 reps, you’re lifting a lot of weight.

Because of the heavy workouts, I don’t want you to burn out in the first week or two. That’s a problem many bodybuilders fall into. They start off very enthusiastically and do way too much exercise. You know the type, they keep mentioning how they’re “so soar” and they can barely lift their arms. This is what happens when you haven’t worked out in a long time, then go really hard. If you’re working out regularly, you won’t be as soar on a regular basis. Of course, the non-soarness can also be a sign that you’re plateauing and it’s time to change things up.

You might want to go a little easier on the first week of 10 in 30. Try 10-12 reps instead of 6-8. Hopefully you know that it should always be ’til failure, so the lower the reps means the higher the weight. Also try only 2 sets instead of 3. On week 2, you can go with 3 sets, but still 10 – 12 reps each. Then on week 3, you can go with the program as is.

I know you might not want to do this, but this is a long term endeavor you’ve got yourself into. You’re not going to work out for only the 30 days, and then stop because you “got too busy”. Bullshit! It only takes one hour max per 24 hour day. You can fit it in. This is important too. In fact, it can be argued that this is more important. Sure, you have a career, kids, household duties and whatnot. But if you really want to change your physique and your health, I’m sure you can fit in one measly hour. There will always be chores. The one hour workout is not going to mess up hours of work, hours of chores, and ruin your life. In fact, it’s going to enhance it and you know that.

You’ll feel like a million bucks after your workout, and the results you see in the mirror will motivate you as a nice reward for your hard work. Not to mention the compliments from the girls you’ll receive. (I’m assuming most readers of this site are men) People will notice. There’s no way they will not. I’m telling you, I’ve gotten so many compliments after I met my goal that a week couldn’t go by without at least one person saying I “look bigger” or “your arms. wow” or like I mentioned earlier, the department boss embarrassing me in one of the meetings, haha. And I haven’t reached my “ultimate goal” yet. I still consider myself a bit skinny and will gain another 10 pounds after my fat-cutting program.

I’ve been consistent since around February with different plans. I had done a few other methods of working out before switching to the 10 in 30 in August. Don’t make it hard for yourself. Make sure it’s easy to go to the gym, or if you’re using your home gym, even better. Make sure there are no distractions and nothing will get in your way. Leave the hard work for the actual lifting, not getting to the gym.

The bottom line: A half-ass workout done 3-4 days a week, consistently for 6 months is WAY better than 4 kick-ass workouts done in a month, and maybe two more next month, none on month 3, etc.

cheers, and drink up!

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