Tuesday 29 March 2011

DTP Week 1 Day 4 -- Chest & Backs

I know I know, this is supposed to be updated last Friday but I just totally forgot about it. Hey, at least I'm doing it right now right?

So, today is my first time pairing these 2 major muscle groups together for the first time, EVER! Initially, I was thinking of supersetting the two, but I thought about it, if I can't get it right with arms, how in the hell am I gonna get these 2 done together? Besides, my pecs has always been the weakest when it comes to high repetition workouts. And my bi's & tri's were still soring like hell from the previous arms' day workout earlier that week.

So I started of with pecs. I warmed up and pre-exhausted it with 2 exercises: machine bench press and pec deck flye. Trust me, you should never ever do what I did as it was a mistake. You'll see why. On machine bench press, it was 3 x 20 with 38.5kg (85lbs), 45.4kg (100lbs) and 52.2kg (115lbs). With a decent pump already kicking in, I moved on to the pec deck machine. 3 sets altogether is 15 x 31.8kg (70lbs), 12 x 38.5kg (85lbs) and 10 x 45.4kg (100lbs).

Right after I pre-exhausted my pecs, I can already sense that I've made a huge mistake by pre-exhausting my pecs to that state but I was thinking, maybe I could handle it.

Now for the main course, I chose to do incline dumbbell presses to improve my weak upper pecs:

1st set: 40 x 12kg (26.5lbs) + 10 x 8kg (17.6lbs)
I was already feeling the burn right into this set and I was seriously going crazy that time. Can you believe that I dropped on the first set? How the hell was I not able to blast off this set with such light weight? I blamed the pre-exhaustion but I stayed optimistic. By the way, I dropped to this set because there wasn't any 10's (22lbs') left on the racks.

2nd set: 30 x 12kg (26.5lbs) + 10 x 8kg (17.6lbs)
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. That's it! I was so frustrated with myself then. ARGH! The only thing I can say about this set is: "What the hell!?!?"

3rd set: 17 x 14kg (30.9lbs) + 4 x 8kg (17.6lbs) + 9 x 6kg (13.2lbs)
Seriously, I was regretting for taking my pecs so far without thinking twice before the actual workout. My pecs burned and more importantly, my tri's were not functioning well. They were burning, more than my pecs. I believe it was due to the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) of my tri's from the previous workout.

4th set: 9 x 16kg (35.3lbs) + 11 x 12kg (26.5lbs)
This is already the best I could do. I was struggling really badly for my last rep and I could feel that my triceps are dead.

Without my tri's to support my presses, I figured that this would be my last set, at least for incline bench press. So I went on to another exercises to kill my pecs off while not putting as much stress on my tri's as I've already did.

High-pulley Cable Crossovers:
5th set: 10 x 27.2kg (60lbs)
Usually, I'm able to do this for 10 reps and fail only on my last rep but this time, apparently I have to cheat much earlier, around 3 reps earlier. This shows how weak my pecs have become.

6th set: 10 x 27.2kg (60lbs)
Cheating crazily but I still remembered to control my negatives but on my last rep, I totally lost control of my pecs. Crazy ass PUMP!

7th set: 20 x 20.4kg (45lbs)
I'd never realized that this weight can kill my pecs off so easily. Enough said.

8th set: 30 x 15.9kg (35lbs)
Not easy at all. My body was basically swinging throughout the last 10 reps and I wasn't able to hold the contractions very well.

9th set: 40 x 11.3kg (25lbs)
The first 20 reps felt easy, but the next, not so. I felt as if my pecs were no longer mine and my hands were just moving because some force is moving my pecs rather than myself. But once I finished the set, I felt as if my pecs came back to me, with all the blood in my body in there.

10th set: 50 x 6.8 kg (15lbs)
By far the easiest set, and so I thought. I could literally see my face go twisted when doing the set. NUTS!

So now you see why I told you not to do what I did earlier on? DTP is such a high intensity workout with such high repetitions that too much pre-exhausting can only cause problems.

I then moved on to backs after 5 minutes break with Cable Rows and if you think pecs was my only problem that day, think again:

1st set:  50 x 22.7kg (50lbs)
Unsurprisingly, my bi's were getting tight instead of my lats and that was totally wrong. My DOMS on my arms were really getting in my way.

2nd set: 40 x 27.2kg (60lbs)
I used a little res-pause here already, not because of my lats, but my bi's.

3rd set: 30 x 31.8kg (70lbs)
Oh man, this time, my lats were feeling the punishment, alongside my bi's. I didn't care about my bi's and just went on focusing on my lats and man, it felt tiring.

4th set: 20 x 40.8kg (90lbs)
Insane pump on my lats then and it felt absolutely awesome. The only downside is that my bi's were burning like hell and that's not supposed to happen.

5th set: 10 x 54.4kg (120lbs)
My lats were feeling most of the reps on this one and so I thought maybe my bi's is getting used to it now. By the way, my lats felt incredible.

6th set: 10 x 54.4kg (120lbs)
OK, I was wrong, my bi's just snapped, not literally but metaphorically. Fortunately, not before I finished the set and punish my lats.

So to relieve some of the stress from my bi's, I decided to do lats pulldown, thinking that a slightly different movement may be able to reduce the stress on my bi's:

7th set: 20 x 36.3kg (80lbs)
Still OK for my bi's but I can still feel the stress on it. More importantly, my lats were still feeling the stress and pump, so it was good. Really tough to finish the set though.

8th set: 30 x 31.8kg (70lbs)
I was really worried because though I still feel my lats were doing the majority of the exercise, I felt that my bi's couldn't hold on any longer after my set.

9th set: 20 x 27.2kg (60lbs) [FAIL by 20 REPS!]
After exactly 20 reps, my bi's gave in and I wasn't able to finish the exercise anymore. FAIL!

So ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my workout of the day and I admit, this is my most miserable workout since a long while. But never mind, I'll learn from my mistakes and it's only gonna get better!

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

My photo
Look at me, I am not famous!