SHR

January 4, 2017 Shoulders I never trained shoulders exclusively since I’ve always believed that they got hit pretty well on back and chest training movements but have since rethought this. So now I have dedicated a specific training session to shoulders each week. I make it the end of my training week since it’s a fairly small muscle group and I’m already pretty spent by the end of the week. Giant sets for shoulders look like this… Seated shoulder press machine + upright dumbbell rows + front raise using 35 lb. plate + reverse pec deck. Yes you counted right. This Giant Set is comprised of 4 movement instead 3. What do you call a 4 movement Giant Set? Hhmmm.. Maybe a Super Giant Set? NOTES: The shoulder press machine I use places the weight “per hand” so the weight stack is per hand not spread across both hands. When doing upright...

January 3, 2017 Back & Bi’s Giant sets are the corner stone of all of my sessions currently and so my back session looked like this. T-Bar Rows + Rear Delt Dumbbell Raise + Pulley Hammer Curls (using rope handle) 5 circuits of these three movements. All movements were done with no rest but some amount of rest in between each giant set. T-Bar Rows: 1 plate x 25 reps; Rear Delt Dumbbell Raise: 45 lbs. x 15 reps; Pulley Hammer Curls: 50 lbs. x 25 reps 2min T-Bar Rows: 2 plates x 20 reps; Rear Delt Dumbbell Raise: 45 lbs. x 15 reps; Pulley Hammer Curls: 60 lbs. x 20 reps 2min T-Bar Rows: 3 plates x 15 reps; Rear Delt Dumbbell Raise: 45 lbs. x 16 reps; Pulley Hammer Curls: 70 lbs. x 12 reps 3min T-Bar Rows: 4 plates x 12 reps; Rear Delt Dumbbell Raise: 45 lbs....

January 1, 2017 I’m doing this more for me than you the reader. But if it helps you focus and stay on task with your health and fitness that’s good too. I’ve made no resolutions for 2017. It’s a continuation of 2016’s missions that I haven’t achieved yet. With that being said, next click on my age-dial is 59 in June of 2017. I’m still able to build muscle and I’m still able to be strong and I’m going to milk that for as long as I can. I figured I need a before picture so here it is. This was taken 3 days after Thanksgiving. First leg day of 2017 went like this: 5 giant-set circuits; leg press + leg extension + seated leg curls in succession with no rest in between movements. ~3 minutes rest in between giant-sets. Leg press: 6 plates per side x 25 reps + Leg...

Among clinical trials investigating long-term weight loss, exercise as the only intervention is virtually useless. When total daily energy expenditure among industrialized societies is compared to contemporary hunter-gatherer tribesmen, they are similar despite the hunter-gatherers performing markedly more physical activity. The risk of dying is reduced dramatically as time spent being active each day increases towards 1 hour, after which it somewhat flat-lines (no additional benefit). Why? Shouldn’t being more active increase energy expenditure? According to the additive energy expenditure model, it certainly should (figure 1). However, as Pontzer et al show in their latest publication, the relationship between physical activity and energy expenditure is far more complex. They provide support for the constrained total energy expenditure model in which energy allocation among physiological tasks responds dynamically to long-term shifts in physical activity. As such, daily energy expenditure is maintained within a relatively narrow range. Five populations hold the answer In...

As promised during Physical Culture Radio Show today with Brooks Kubik a snap shot of my heart rate during a typical Back workout. As you can see, from a cardiovascular perspective, this weight-training session looks more like I was doing interval sprints! So what does that tell us about the cardiovascular contributions of the right weight training sessions?