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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