Tag Archive for: Pullups

DEVASTATING Back work out.

It was time for a straight Back Day. No messing around, no mixing shit up, no half-assed “I’m tired” stuff. Super sets are my thing, and today was no exception. Protein shake with BCAA’s an hour before. Green tea pill half hour before. iPod with kick-ass music blasting. This makes a HUGE difference, at least for me. Music has a big impact on me. So, instead of working out to Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’ on the gym’s loudspeakers and inevitably yawning mid way through, I resorted to heavy bass dubstep and other electro goodness. To each their own.

Here’s what I did:

Bent Over Rows
Pullups Madness. Regular pullups, then immediately jump on the Assisted Pullups machine, add 40# and do more. Then, chinups using a semi-supinated grip (palms facing each other). Then add another 20 for 60# total, and do another set of pullups/chinups. Keep doing that ’til you get to 4 assisted sets. I did this twice.
Straight Arm Press Downs on cable machine, separate hands. For Lats.
Unilateral Bent Over Rows Dumbbells. 3 sets with hand on bench, 2 with elbow on bench. 2 more stepping way to the side to allow the row to be more centered on the body.
Seated High Rows Wide grip, Narrow semi-supinated grip. 2 & 2.
Body Rows with Barbell 3 sets.
Straight Arm Press Downs with high cable, and straight bar.
Reverse Flies seated, with cables. 3 high intensity sets.

Whew! Mostly back to back with no rest. I alternated bicep intensive exercises like Pullups and Rows with the Straight Arm exercises while the biceps rested. Only rested :30 as necessary. Whole thing took around 45 minutes. Major sweat buckets! I now feel devastated. Thanks a lot.

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Cross Train Thursday—Squats and Back.


Yes, I mixed Legs and Back. I did chest yesterday, and I hadn’t done any legs except for calves in about a week, so there you go.

Squats. Since I don’t have a squat rack at home, I went with light weight, 12 rep squats. I highly recommend this when you don’t have a squat rack for safety. You don’t want to have to do a heavy military press after you’re burned out on squats. If it’s enough weight for your legs to max out at 6-8 reps, then for sure, it’s way too much weight for you to do a safe over the head (or military) shoulder press, especially after you’re exhausted. You’ll still do as many squats as you can, maxing out at a higher number, but when you’re done you will not have a problem lifting the bar over your head, onto your chest, then lowering it down slowly while keeping your back arched instead of rounding it. I did 4 sets of 12.

Followed it with Standing Calf Raises and immediately; Seated Calf Raises ’til my lower legs burned. 3 sets.

Then, on to the Pullup bar. Started with Horizontal Pullups, then regular Pullups. Then I used my Suspension System to do some Rows in order to hit more angles in my back. I started with very low handles, then raised them slightly after I maxed out and did some more. I also varied the grip from overhand to pistol grip to over-under twisties. Same thing for the pullups. Started with wide, then neutral grip, then chinups (underhand grip). It’s also good practice to hold at the top for some of the reps and do Knee Raises to Ab Curls while holding yourself up like I did!

That’s it; not many exercises, but many sets and I surely pushed it to where I was totally pooped. Nourished myself with a scoop and a half of Whey with 5g BCAA’s + another scoop of 5g BCAA’S with 5g Creatine in 10 ounces of 2% milk for a total of 47g protein.

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12-20-10 Back 10in30: Pullups Madness!

Today was the first day that I had a full, complete workout in exactly two weeks since I had the flu. Nasty, nasty flu it is. during these past two weeks, I only did a minor Chest day that consisted of incline Hammer machine press, reg Hammer press, and pushups, plus Step Mill. On Saturday. However, I also did  a great workout of resistance band curls (many kinds), a ton of pushups including feet up and “perfect pushups”, lat and front delt raises, and tricep extensions. But that’s only 1.5 workouts in two weeks. I had also injured my forearms by using too much weight during forearm rollers and perhaps too many pullups/curls for my inside forearm muscles.

After icing my arms, taking ibuprofen, and resting them muscles for the two weeks, my arms are almost back and I was able to have a great workout again, finally. I went with Back, from the 10 in 30 plan with slight modification.

Uni-Lateral Rows + superset: Pullups + assisted pullups after maxing out on real ones. 3X
Pull downs wide. 3x
hanging leg lifts
Rows narrow 3x
Box Situps
Rows starship fighter 3x
1 set high jumps
1 set squat jumps

Then my calves started to cramp up, so that was the end of that. I did the Unilateral Bentover Rows first, so that I could get maximum results out of them in order to properly pre-exhaust for the pullups. I’m trying a method I learned about for upping your number of pullups. My max is only 12, so I’ll see how it went after 4 Back days doing this pre-exhaust method.

I think it will have to increase my reps since I maxed out multiple times during each set of pullups.  After doing the uni-lat rows, I immediately jumped on the pullup bar and could only do around 3-4 good ones, then moved to the assisted pullup machine subtracting 80 lbs and maxed out again, this time at around 6-8. Then I raised the weight some more, (lessening the load) to around 100 lbs, and did another 6, then raised it again to 110, and maxed out one more time at around 6 again. Then, after a minute rest, I go back to the next set of uni-lat rows and repeat!

When doing the pullups, I made sure to stop and hold myself at the top and really “crunch” my back muscles and lats, squeezing them tightly for 2-3 seconds before coming back down in a slow, CONTROLLED fashion. Don’t just let your ass drop like a fucking sack of potatoes! Remember that negative resistance actually gives better results than the positive. That’s why some people even do “negs only” sets. Try them with curls sometime or at least do a super slow return—slower even than the 10 in 30 suggested 3 seconds— take around 10 seconds to come back down during your negative. Your arms will burn like mad and you’ll be sore like a mofo again. Miss that feeling, don’t you?

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