Workout of the Day: Gravity Guy

After a few days off upon returning from Oklahoma City and Austin, I'm back on the training trail and just hit my 20 workouts for the month goal. Changing it up a bit I went ahead and kept a few things from Vince Gironda's training methods I liked and mixed it with some Frank Zane while putting my own personal spin on it. When possible, I'll get in two sessions in a day, quick ones under 35 minutes working generally the same muscles and then taking the following day off. That way if I do this say 3 days a week, I've gotten in 6 workouts. And they say multiple sessions of faster, shorter and more intense work is better for the body than a marathon 90 minute visit. Try it yourself and see how you feel. You could take a nice empty stomach walk in the morning then do some weights at night or do some body weight exercises upon rising then weights at night or just hit the weights twice but you'll probably need to back off the poundage for the second workout as you'll be fatigued from the morning session.

Right now I'm focused on performing 3 exercises per body part doing 4 sets of 8 reps with slow negatives to fight gravity. The added resistance will challenge your muscles in a new way as most people don't think about the negative phase.

Shoulders and Arms:
Press Machine/Bent Over EZ Bar Curls/EZ Bar Pullover and Press
Dumbbell Side Laterals/Lying DB Curls/1-Arm Side Extensions
Straight Bar Cable Front Raise/Cable Curl Preacher, 21's/Rope Extension

As you can see, I designed this workout to start heavy with basic moves to get everything pumped up then moved into Dumbbells for form, range of motion and definition then finished with cables to keep constant tension on the muscles.

While following Gironda's training methods, I stopped doing cardio after weights and felt kind of blubbery so I'm back to 10 minutes or so of bike, jump rope or ab aerobics and feeling good.

For Legs I'm employing Squats, Front Squats, Sissy Squats, Hack Slides Froggy Style, Leg Curls and Calves seated, standing or on a leg press machine:

Squat/Leg Curl/Hack Slide/Calf Raises on Smith Machine

Same thing here doing 4 sets of 8 reps to build a nice foundation except calves, you gotta go 15-20 to make them respond. Legs are arguably the most overlooked body part so you have to try and keep them strong yet proportioned to your upper body. Once upon a time, having the same size biceps and calves was the ultimate goal. Doing legs releases more testosterone and growth hormone so theoretically your other muscles would actually get bigger if you trained your lower body more often.

It's convention and wedding season so keep it up!