Ash's Journal

[Varven]

Nice work on the biceps, you seem to be using good weights there in proportion to other lifts, big guns Im sure will be a final result ....Joint nutrition works wonders for me dude.

[deegee]

Decent all round workout good to see the red in there

[Ash]

Decent all round workout good to see the red in there

also good to see lots of red here. heal that knee up

Nice work on the biceps, you seem to be using good weights there in proportion to other lifts, big guns Im sure will be a final result ....Joint nutrition works wonders for me dude.

Thanks guys. These leg days are becoming really frustrating but I'll get it sorted.

[Ash]

Nice workout Ash.

Cheers mate, it felt good but I miss hobbling to the car with a set of very beaten quads.

Have you tried doing your BB curls with your back against a wall, totally removes any signs of the back working in the movement.

I have but for some reason I still get a lot of back strain. With the cable curls, my back feels fine.

I really recommend you get the joint formula mate, get a really good one, i would say a powder one like the nutralift or something (just better bang for your buck) and stay on it for at least a month, you wont know yourself mate.

Yeah - I've stopped resisting. I'll go on the USANA stuff ASAP.

[Growth]

Yeah - I've stopped resisting. I'll go on the USANA stuff ASAP.

Good on ya mate :wink:

[Pseudonym]

Let us know how you find it, Ash. With your poor battered body, you seem like an ideal candidate for joint formula, so I'll be interested to see what you think.

[Ash]

Let us know how you find it, Ash. With your poor battered body, you seem like an ideal candidate for joint formula, so I'll be interested to see what you think.

You make me sound 103 years old - I'm not quite ready to join Grey Power :grin:

I'll keep you posted - the stuff I am on apparently kicks in reasonably quickly.

[Ash]

Wednesday - chest, delts, tris, back width, back thickness

Great workout today!

Incline bench press

82.5 x 8 :grin:

(Last time 77.5 x 9)

That's the heaviest I've ever managed to shift on this movement. When I was at my "peak" many years ago, I could never really get any weight going on incline press, maxing out at about 70kg. Hell I could do more than that on standing military press, so it was always a weak movement. You can imagine how good it feels to see more than 80kg after all these years.

Smith military press

47.5 x 7 :grin:

(Last time 45 x 8 )

I wasn't sure if I should try for a weight increase on this but I was quite fired up after inclines and went for it...I almost made 8 reps here but I am very chuffed with 7.

Tricep pushdowns

66 x 13

(Last time 60 x 13)

Hammer pulldowns

62.5 x 10

(Last time 60 x 9)

I was quite irritated to find the pulldown machine out of order today. I've been visualizing my workouts before going in and I was ready to kill my PB but had to shift to Hammer pulldowns instead. I still managed to get in a very good set - I'm closing in on my PB with much better form than before.

Machine rows (horizontal grip)

72.5 x 10

(Last time 67.5 x 11)

[Growth]

I was quite irritated to find the pulldown machine out of order today

Must be for "maintenance" huh?

Awesome stuff though mate, your going from strength to strength.

[Varven]

Wednesday - chest, delts, tris, back width, back thickness

Great workout today!

Incline bench press

82.5 x 8 :grin:

(Last time 77.5 x 9)

That's the heaviest I've ever managed to shift on this movement. When I was at my "peak" many years ago, I could never really get any weight going on incline press, maxing out at about 70kg. Hell I could do more than that on standing military press, so it was always a weak movement. You can imagine how good it feels to see more than 80kg after all these years.

Smith military press

47.5 x 7 :grin:

(Last time 45 x 8 )

I wasn't sure if I should try for a weight increase on this but I was quite fired up after inclines and went for it...I almost made 8 reps here but I am very chuffed with 7.

Tricep pushdowns

66 x 13

(Last time 60 x 13)

Hammer pulldowns

62.5 x 10

(Last time 60 x 9)

I was quite irritated to find the pulldown machine out of order today. I've been visualizing my workouts before going in and I was ready to kill my PB but had to shift to Hammer pulldowns instead. I still managed to get in a very good set - I'm closing in on my PB with much better form than before.

Machine rows (horizontal grip)

72.5 x 10

(Last time 67.5 x 11)

You must be over the roof after nailing the age old enemy (incline chest press), good going !

I struggle with any BB chest movements as well. DB and Dips go just fine though.

[jono]

nice work manking some good gains man. whats the diff now.. more food ? more food will 99% of the time solve progress probs

[Ash]

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

nice work manking some good gains man. whats the diff now.. more food ? more food will 99% of the time solve progress probs

My diet still isn't great - not enough total calories but I am working on sorting that out.

This may sound strange but I am convinced that the strength gains are happening because I've stopped training to failure all the time. I'll start a thread about this soon.

[Ash]

I went in on Sunday intending to train back, bis, forearms and legs but I was far too casual with my breakfast and after about half an hour, everything started to go white and I got a bit wobbly :pale: , so I left bis and forearms for today.

I still managed to beat the logbook on the exercises I did but would have done much better if I was 100% fed and ready to go.

Close grip pulldowns

84 x 10

(Last time 84 x 9)

Machine rows (vertical grip)

75 x 12

(Last time 72.5 x 13)

Seated leg curls

35 x 12

(Last time 35 x 9)

Leg extensions

35 x 17

(Last time 30 x 19)

Light weights but slowly getting there as my knees heal up.

[Ash]

I had a fantastic workout today :grin:

After yesterdays debacle, I made sure that I ate and drank plenty and it made a huge difference.

Monday - chest, delts, tris (plus bis and forearms which I missed yesterday)

Smith machine incline press

57.5 x 8

(Last time 55 x 9)

Hammer military press

67.5 x 9

(last time was 65 x 8 )

Initially I went for 65, aiming for 9 -10 reps but I failed at 8 reps because I lost focus by concentrating on my wrist pain instead of the movement. This pissed me off big time, so I came back to this at the end of the workout and managed to kill the logbook even with my triceps fried from CG press. :gunfire:

CG bench press

90 x 9

(Last time 87.5 x 10)

Seated DB curls

20 x 10

(Last time 18 x 10)

Getting back to my old weights slowly but surely. I think I've been overtraining bis, so I've made changes to my workouts to get back and bis done on the same day.

Standing DB wrist curls

27.5 x 12

(Last time 25 x 12)

[jono]

great workouts man. impressive CG

[Growth]

Excellent work mate, loving those CG's, expect 100+ very soon :grin:

[sponge]

what's with all the machines buddy? :grin:

[Ash]

what's with all the machines buddy? :grin:

Guilty as charged :oops:

Actually for each machine movement, I generally have a free weight equivalent at some point in the rotation - e.g. for chest, in addition to smith inclines and hammer chest press, I do BB inclines. For delts, I do BB military press as well as smith military press and hammer shoulder press.

Once my back is 100% sorted, I'll drop the smith machine movements and bring DBs back in.

[Ash]

great workouts man. impressive CG

Thanks jono - feels like I'm getting stronger each workout.

Excellent work mate, loving those CG's, expect 100+ very soon :grin:

Thanks. I don't know about 100+ soon though. 100 for 8 on CG is one of my current goals but I reckon I'll take my time getting there.

[deegee]

good going it feels so much beeter when you have a good workout and hit a few pbs!

[ExpensiveUrine]

Agree on the freakish CGB. Good stuff.

Just keep eating.

[sponge]

what's with all the machines buddy? :grin:

Once my back is 100% sorted, I'll drop the smith machine movements and bring DBs back in.

oh sorry, i didn't know you had a back injury

fair enough then

[Varven]

Good to see you kicking that log books ass all over the place bro, show it who the master is ! I have no idea how you guys manage to CG Bench so much.. im barely able to get 1 pps !!

[Ash]

My latest blood test has my testosterone levels at 17.5 :grin: (on a reference rage of 9 -30), up from 15.4 in early July and way better than 12.3 in June.

The increase is encouraging since I've been off Tribulus for over a month and was on a lower dose for a while before that. Still it's not as high as I would like but I'll keep tweaking my diet and see if I can get it to keep climbing.

[jono]

My latest blood test has my testosterone levels at 17.5 :grin: (on a reference rage of 9 -30), up from 15.4 in early July and way better than 12.3 in June.

The increase is encouraging since I've been off Tribulus for over a month and was on a lower dose for a while before that. Still it's not as high as I would like but I'll keep tweaking my diet and see if I can get it to keep climbing.

good to hear man