I will be back at QMC on Tuesday. This year I will be aiming for hopefully A*A*AA – A*AAA in Maths,Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry A2. Just in case anyone was wondering, these are my first year results:
Completed an abs and core workout.
Mostly hanging leg raises, crunches etc
Went high volume and also hit the obliques with a few side bends and wood choppers. Will be trying to keep side bends to a minimum to keep my waist small and slim but lower abs still need a lot of work. Going for max reps on hanging leg raises is going to be the best way for this in my opinion. Bodyweight crunches and machine crunches are proving to be effective for upper abs.
Next week I will be returning to college so I won’t be hitting as many sessions a week, but will still be aiming for five.
Also got my college timetable today, looks reasonable. Have 9 free periods a week and I will be aiming to use 5 of these at least for further study from day one.
Decided to miss out core work today as my abs still ache from Monday. Did very little pressing as my front delts have had a lot of stimulation from chest moves. Trying to focus on rear and lateral heads of delt over the next few weeks to give a rounder look.
Lateral raises 10kg 10 10 10 10 (aim for 3×12)
Shoulder press DB 27.5kg 10 5 (aim for 10 10)
Rear delt standing bar row 10kg x10 15kg x10 15kg x10 (more of a warm up exercise focus on contracting the muscle and firing it up)
Single arm rear delt row on cable row 5kg 10 10 10 (aim for a higher rep range 12-15)
Rear delt flye 5kg 10 10 10 (use 6kg next sesh)
Upright row cable 12.5kg x10 15kg x10 15kg x10 (warm up for traps, focus on flaring the traps and then squeezing)
Dumbell upright row 10kg 10 10 10 10 10 (use 12.5kg unsure about rep range yet, but focus on stretch)
Good push workout.
Dumb bell press 35kg 10 10 6
Dips BW10 10kgx10 10kgx6 drop set BW4
Incline press machine 52.5kg 10 10 6
Cable flye 7.5kg 10 10kg 9 9
Push ups burnout failure sets
Rope push down 25kg x10 (felt weak on these after push ups, need more rest) 25kg x8 22.5kg x6
One arm push down 7.5kg X 10 6.25kg x10 5kg x10 (focus on negative)
Kick backs burnouts and diamond push ups
This pull work out went well, from what I can remember:
Pull ups (overhand wide) 10 9 6 (focus on strong contraction at the top of the rep and always drop down to a dead hand with a slow negative)
Lat pull down 70kg x10 65kg x10 55kg x10 (short rest, focus on pulling with elbows)
One arm row 25kgx10 25kg x8 22.5kg x10 (focus on long stretch)
Double arm row 45kg x10 45kg x8 45kg x6 Drop set 35kg x4 (focus on pulling the elbows and rear delts back and towards each over)
Dumbbell pull over and straight arm pull over burn out sets
Dumbbell hammer curl 15kg x10 17.5kgx8 15kg x10
One arm barbell curl (fun burnout exercise) 10kg 10 10 10
Barbell curl 30kg 10 10 6
Also did some core work
(hanging leg raises, obliques etc)
At the moment I am on a five day split with a focus on arm and abs development. This is as follows.
1: Pull(Back and Biceps)
2. Push(Chest and Triceps)
3. Shoulders and CORE(abs and obliques)
4. Arms (Tricep and Bicep)
5.Legs and CORE (abs and obliques)
This usually works out to be: Mon/Wed/Thu/Sat/Sun but this is not strict, some times I may have an extra rest day if necessary.
Each muscle group usually has around 8-12 sets (not including warm up sets) and I try to keep in the rep range of around 8-12, usually with 10 being the target. Rest periods are as long as is required, but this is still usually under 2 minutes.
I have completed this for 3 weeks and I have just completed a deload week. The plan for the next couple of months will be ON/ON/ON/DELOAD and I will carry this out for another 3 cycles focusing on progressive overload. I sometimes do however complete a couple of drop sets if I feel strong enough that day.
At the moment my focus is on overall progression for all muscle groups but I will be placing some emphasis on specific muscles either because I want to have them ‘over progressed’ to look more prominent or because they are a genetic weak link and I need to bring them up to speed. At present my strongest body parts are Abs, Shoulders and Chest. Which is not a surprise as before getting serious about bodybuilding I would just do endless push ups and sit ups. My weakest muscle groups are Legs(Hamstrings and calves mainly, quads aren’t as weak) Traps and Back( not very wide, need more lat development) so after this cycle for the next 12 weeks I will begin a new program focusing on these lagging parts.
An obvious question to ask is why am I on a split with an Arm/Abs focus? This is because these muscle groups are the ones I wish to have most advanced and prominent, so I am therefore looking to give these a head start for personal reasons. It’s a bit foolish I know, but you can’t ever really have too ‘good’ abs and my arms are only around 14-14.5 inches anyway, so being a beginner almost any routine will give strong gains.
The main point of this blog will be to track and measure my bodybuilding/fitness progress as well as my academic journey through my last year of sixth form college(and then hopefully University). I’m seventeen (DOB 21/7/1997) and as you may already have guessed I live in the UK. I am very much into the fitness and weight lifting lifestyle and I hope to one day achieve an outstanding physique and compete on stage. At college I am studying maths, further maths,physics and chemistry at A2 and I plan on going on to complete a mathematics degree with some economics/business modules allowing me to go in to any of finance/actuarial science/IB etc as a career.
In my spare time I also enjoying reading, watching movies and some T.V series and watching various Youtube channels. I have read many different books over the last few years but they have mainly included bodybuilding guides, physics books and other popular science books. Favorites of mine include Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Sigh, The Bed Side Book of Physics, Strength Training anatomy and ‘1089 and all that’. I’m also for some reason interested in sociopath/ psychopath behavior and this has lead to me reading a few books on these subjects also.
The movies I would say that are my favorite are, in particular order, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Purge and The Purge Anarchy, Project X and The Social Network.
Favorite T.V shows of mine include Friends, House, Skins and Suits.
Youtube Channels I watch regularly are LOA, CGFitness, POG VSAUCE and Vitaly.
imdan2014 