I recently lifted at the Arnold XPC Finals. This was my first meet at 220 since 2010 where I managed a 955 squat, 675 bench and 675 deadlift for a 2305 total and lightweight best lifter win. Taking some time to get leaner, look better and accomplish a few other physical goals. 

Had a really good lower session on Sunday! Volume was pretty high and pushed my legs pretty hard.

1. Squat- 5 x 5

These I did paused and with a slower tempo. I was squatting a very whippy bar, so I focused on controlling the speed to keep the bar from moving around much. Worked up to a top set of 315, which while note very much weight this was considerably more challenging than you might think. Slow, paused reps are hard.

2. Deadlift – 5 x 5

These I did against a light band. I think the top weight was 300 pounds or so plus the band. Super easy work. I would’ve liked to go a bit heavier but something in my neck/traps has been bothering me so I kept it light to avoid any sort of pain.

I did go and see Vince at Chiropractic Unlimited yesterday and he adjusted me as well as releasing a bunch of nasty knots in my traps. All seems good now! Not a real injury, just annoying enough that I knew I needed to deal with it.

3. Leg Press super set with lunges

For the leg pressing, I used this kind of neat “squat press” machine that our gym has. Nice piece. Kept the volume high at 15 rep sets and super set with 20 walking lunge strides for a few sets. Just bodyweight on the lunges.

4. Leg Extension

4 x 25. Enough said.

An experiment…

Some of my programming might look a little goofy at the end. I wanted to increase my overall work volume and frequency, but can’t really add more weight training sessions per week right now. With my master’s degree study in full swing, I just can’t dedicate anymore than 4 nights to the gym. I also didn’t want to just add more exercises of the same stuff to the end of sessions because I feel like after 4-5 difficult movements, those body parts are exhausted to the point that more work isn’t useful. So I’m adding some other work onto each day.

Day 1- Primary legs, secondary chest

Day 2- Primary back, secondary shoulders

Day 3- Primary chest, secondary legs

Day 4- Primary shoulders, secondary back

For this session’s secondary chest workout, I kept it to 2 exercises and picked stuff that would be low stress. Cable fly and machine chest press. 100 reps of each with slow contractions and light weight. Managed some good work here even with only 2 exercises.