Musskull Benchmarking for the week of 12-4

Sunday

Squats: 9, 8 @ 65 lbs (Getting as much depth as possible. Don’t believe their lies.)
Freeweights:

Overhead: 10, 8 @ 20 lb per arm
Pecs: 10, 5 @ 25 lb per arm
Row: 10, 10 @ 30 lb per arm
Bicep curl: 7, 3 @ 50 lb barbell

(Monday Rest Day.)

Tuesday

Pull-ups: 10, 6, 4
Push-ups: 10, 10, 10
Lateral Raise 7, 7 @ 75 lbs (deltoids)
Rear deltoids 10, 8 @ 84 lbs
Lever Fly 8, 7 @ 75 lbs
Torso Rotation 12L, 12R @ 75 lbs
Back hyperextension: 20, 15 @ 10 lbs (holding a little circle of weight, that is.)
Side-bends: 15L, 15R, 15L, 15R
Lunges: 20 (I went down the backside of the track and counted?)
Inner Hip Abductor: 30, 20, 10 @ 110 lbs (I’m far removed from my initial groin pull. : D)

(Wednesday Rest Day.)

Thursday

Deadlift: 10, 10, 10 @ 65 lbs (Figured that was the weight I’m squatting. I was worried about my back, but it feels great.)
Lat Pull: 11, 7, 5 @ 150 lbs (With the middle set done facing away from the machine. This is the easier machine which has a more fluid motion to the arms.)
Ab machine: 20, 12 @ 80 lbs (Haven’t progressed much on this particular machine in a while.)
Seated Dumbbell Pull: 10, 10 @ 25 lbs per arm (I wanted to hit the three ways I could move weight towards me.)
Reverse Incline Bench Static Sit-ups: 15, 15, 10 @ 2 kg (I do them slow while rotating my upper body, so I’m not just using the middle abs.)
Seated Lat Row: 7, 3 @ 110 (Noticed my arms felt dead by this point. I like that.)
Outer Hip Abductor: 20, 20, 12 @ 80 lbs

Friday

Chest Press: 8, 6, 5 @ 80 lbs (Decided to go with the harder machine.)
Inner Hip Abductor: 25, 12, 6 @ 120 (I added ten pounds, and my rep count went down by a third across all sets. I’m amused.)
Overhead Press: 8, 6, 4 @ 60 lbs (Again picked a harder machine. Wanted the movement to be more above me, not in front of me. Hell, I may just use dumbells for this now on.)
Side-bends: 20L, 20 R, 15L, 15R. (Haven’t decided at what rep count I’ll start adding weight. It’s still a wonderful burning challenge right now.)
Seat Dip: 10, 4 @ 135 lbs (I tried the ‘harder’ machine, but it didn’t feel right. Went back to the one I usually use, and I eventually felt a shooting pain in my right shoulder. So I stopped. This is perplexing as the movement that has caused me discomfort is usually in the opposite direction. For the record, none of the exercises I do cause my discomfort, it’s merely this tweak when I move it in a certain direction.)

Saturday

Crunch machine 20, 10 @ 40 lbs (Machine kicks the shit out of your abs, doesn’t feel quite right yet.)
Outer Hip Abductor: 23, 13, 13 @ 80 lbs
Seated Calf: 23, 19, 16 @ 210 lbs
Tibia Dorsi: 20L, 20R, 10L, 10R @ 43 lbs (ankle in upwards direction)
Underhand wrist: 25L, 25R, 15L, 15R @ 25 lbs
Overhand wrist: 11L, 11R, 8L, 8R @ 15 lbs
Static sit-ups: 20, 15, 15 @ 2 kg
Fingers: 11, 9 @ 30 lb barbell (I saw a guy doing this the other day. Letting a barbell roll down his fingers, then bringing it into his hand with his fingers. Seemed like a good exercise for grip.)
Ran a mile. *nods* Well, ran most of a mile. I don’t time myself.

And that’s a week. I made a plan and I stuck to it. I have some numbers I can look back upon in another eight to ten weeks. *smiles*

One thing that’s become obvious is that I don’t need to run laps at all. It’s almost counterproductive. It’s nice to be all gung-ho over exermacise, but my goals are clear. Right now, I’m more or less bulking up. I’m expending mass quanities of energy moving inanimate objects. After I’m done exermacising, I don’t need to burn off any store of energy. That energy will be going to making my musskulls stronger. Maybe at a later date I can shift my goals and run more, but I really think it’s futile. I was surprised that today’s rather “easy” workout took over forty minutes. Abs aside, I didn’t hit a single major muscle. No glutes, no pecs, not even a bicep. Don’t ask me what a glute is.

Much like I enjoy writing a schedule for upcoming semesters, I’ll probably take my exermacise schedule and play with it further. Of course, once school ends, it’ll get chaotic. But, that’s okay. I’ll get a rest, which I absolutely deserve. I’m being pretty hard on myself!

I have basic objectives for my workouts:

1. Don’t work similar muscle groups two days in a row.
2. Keep it around a half hour, no more than 45 minutes.

Otherwise, I press myself as hard as possible. I was good about getting in and out of the gym rather fast this week. Not in doing my sets fast, just not overexermacising. If I were to have an all-purpose workout, I’d cut out all the similar exercises, pick the ones I feel are best, and label the days A, B, and C, where A and B represent a push/pull split pattern, and C is an all-body day where I have a rest before and after. Thursday and Friday? My workouts were short. I could easily toss the calf and wrist work between the two days.

Also, as much as I like being as thorough as possible, I realized how seated dips and lat pulls both hit the same lat muscle, and how I also hit the deltoids twice. That’s easy to remedy. I’m working too hard. I should exercise less and do more! Freeweights may become my best friend. Erm. Think I’ll go work on v1.2 of my Workout Routines now…