Any excuse is a good excuse. And my excuses for not having really done anything for the past couple of weeks have been my shoulder pains and lack of time. Working retail during the holidays is basically working around the clock. But that’s over now. So one excuse out of the way.
The second excuse has been my shoulders. My shoulders have been killing me for the past couple of weeks. I’ve had this line of pain shooting through the front side of my delts really bothering me.
But I’ve had it with that excuse. Not having worked out meaningful since mid to late December, I’ve been feeling weak, heavy, and just flat out unmotivated.
No more…
Crazy that I am writing a blog about healthy living, working out, blah…blah…blah…
And I’m NOT walking the talk…
That’s BS…
Unfortunately, that also doesn’t relieve the pain in my shoulders.
So, I’ve decided to apply Larry Scott’s advise and massage my workouts. I had been basically using Rusty’s Visual Impact Muscle Building program but that changed today.
Visual Impact uses the push/pull split. It’s a good split. There is a natural flow to working chest to shoulders to triceps or back to biceps.
Except when your shoulders hurt as much as mine does right now…
The chest works the frontal delts pretty hard. The shoulders…well, obviously. And the frontal delts also get some secondary, static work from the triceps exercises, particularly the overhead movements.
Death on my shoulders because it’s the frontal portions that hurt so much.
So, I switched to working opposing muscles groups as of today. Here’s what I did tonight:
- Exercise 1 – Incline press supersetted with wide grip chins. 5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6, 15 for inclines and max rep per set for chins.
- Exercise 2 – Flyes supersetted with rows. 4 sets of 12 or max reps
- Exercise 3 – Dips supersetted with stiff arm pulldowns. 4 sets of 12 or max reps
- Exercise 4 – Tri-set of half squat, sissy squats, and stiff leg deadlifts. 4 sets of 12 or max reps.
- Exercise 5 – Ab wheel. 2 sets of max reps.
Of course, I use Bodylastics, so when I say “incline presses,” it’s my approximation of it with the resistance bands.
Inclines hurt my shoulders. I had to go slow and use light resistance. The chins hurt somewhat when my arms were at full extension. My shoulders hurt the most when my arms are fully extended overhead. By the 4th set of chins, the shoulders actually started feeling good.
Flyes hurt. Rows were great.
Dips were surprisingly did not hurt my shoulders. Again, it’s the extension where my arms are above the shoulders.
By the way, that Tri-set almost had me throwing up. By the 3rd set, I was sucking some serious wind. Basically, I didn’t rest at all. I just went from one movement to the next. Using Bodylastics does away with a lot of safety issues. But if you’re doing this at a gym, I’d suggest doing the half squats inside a power rack. When your legs give out, you need to be able to rack the weights quickly and safely.
That’s one tough Tri-set.
Overall, I felt good. Going back and forth was good.
Tomorrow, my plan is to do:
- Exercise 1 – Tri-set handstand pushups, lateral raises, and face pulls. 4 sets of 12 or max reps.
- Exercise 2 – Standing curls supersetted with tricep pressdowns. 5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6, 15.
- Exercise 3 – Spider curls supersetted with overhead tricep extensions. 4 sets of 12 or max reps.
- Exercise 4 – Reverse curls supersetted with wrist curls. 4 sets of 12 or max reps.
- Exercise 5 – Giant set of hanging leg raises, band assisted ab crunches, reverse ab crunches, and hyper-extensions.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Until, then…
No excuses
