Tom Venuto's BodybuildingSecrets.com - Chest, Biceps, Abs, And High Carb Day (Thank God!)

Chest, Biceps, Abs, And High Carb Day (Thank God!)

Tom Venuto, CSCS, CPT

Saturday, September 24th, 2005. Don’t you just LOVE high carb day?

CHEST

A1 Hammer Strength Isolateral Incline Press: 2 warm up sets; Set 1: 180 lbs (90 per side) X 15 reps; Set 2: 190 lbs (95 lbs per side) X 10 reps, drop to 140 lbs X 8 more reps (drop set); Set 3: 210 lbs X 6 reps, 190 lbs X 6 more reps, 140 lbs X 8 more reps (drop set)
A2 Cable Crossover: Set 1: 65 lbs X 15 reps cross middle; Set 2: 65 lbs X 15 reps cross low; Set 3: 65 lbs X 15 reps multi angle; No rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 90 seconds between supersets
B1 Decline Dumbbell Flyes: 3 sets X 40 lbs X 12-15 reps
B2 Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, neutral grip (palms facing each other): 3 sets 65 lbs X 6 reps X 4021 tempo; No rest between supersetted exercises B1 & B2, 90 seconds rest between supersets

BICEPS

A1 EZ Bar Curls: 2 warmup sets; Set 1: 115 lbs X 12 reps; Set 2: 115 lbs X 9 reps; Set 2: 115 lbs X 8 reps
A2 Dumbbell cross body hammer curls, (thumbs up) alternating: 3 sets X 45 lbs X 8-10 reps
A3 Dumbbell cross body curls, (palms up) alternating: 3 sets X 35 lbs X 12 reps, very strict (3032 tempo); no rest between tri-setted exercises A1, A2, A3, 90 seconds rest between tri-sets
B1 Icarian Curl Machine, one arm: 2 sets X 50 lbs X 10-12 reps, 2-3 forced reps at end of each set; 1 set X 50 lbs, 40 lbs 30 lbs X 10, 8, 8 reps (drop set)

ABS

A1 Hanging straight leg raises: 3 sets X bodyweight X 20 reps
A2 Hanging Knee Ups: 3 sets X 15-20 reps; No rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 60 seconds rest between supersets
B1 Kneeling Cable Crunch with rope: 3 sets X 60 lbs X 25 reps
B2 standing oblique cable crunch (holding rope): 3 sets X 50 lbs X 25 reps per side; No rest between supersetted exercises B1 & B2, 60 seconds rest between supersets
C1 Leg raise/hip lift (“toes to sky”): 3 sets X bodyweight X 20-25 reps

Workout Commentary

I met up with my weekend training partner, Kostas at Empire Fitness Club today for another chest and bicep session. Almost the exact workout as last time, only a little bit heavier on a few exercises (but with more rest between sets; when training with a partner you can’t move quite as quickly). This is mostly a repeat of the last workout, so I won’t go into any exercise descriptions today (refer to past blogs for that).

I have to say, I’m fairly pleased with my chest development considering the pec tear (which happened last august 2004). I thought I would lose size on my chest without the heavy training, but it looks like I’ve maintained my chest size just fine. The pecs may not have gotten any bigger this year, but they didn’t get any smaller either. With low body fat, the tear doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would either, although you can definitely see it when I hit a “crab” most muscular pose.

Today was high carb day, but I only went up to 275 grams compared to the 375 grams I’ve been using previously on high carb days. Reason is, I’m keeping the calories down to stay in a deficit even on the high carb day. It would have been ideal to be 100% shredded and ready to go today (contest shape one week out), but I’m still not where I want to be. If I felt like I was already at 100%, I would have taken in at least 375 g of carbs today, probably more. I wouldn’t have to go so strict on low carb days either, and I would have begun to taper back the cardio. Since I feel like I’m not 100% yet, I’m going to have to keep pushing hard on cardio and dieting super strict right up through next Wednesday when I begin carbing up.

The last three days on 100 grams were rough, especially when you consider I’m still doing double cardio. I noticed a huge difference in energy levels between an intake of 150-175 grams and an intake of 100 grams. Not proportional to the decrease - Like night and day. It’s sort of like I crossed a threshold where if I stay above a certain level, I’m fine, but if I drop below a certain level then I suffer physically and mentally. 150-175 grams is definitely “my bottom level” for low carb days on a fat loss diet (and actually, I lost a lot of the fat this year on 200-220 grams before making that cut to 150).

Fortunately, there’s only 3 more days of this (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday), then I carb back up. For this entire 3.5 month contest prep period, I will have done a total of only two 3-day low carb cycles at 100 grams. Most of my dieting this year was done at 150-220 grams on low days, which wasn’t too hard to handle. I can live with that. (but I won’t mind it when I’m back to 400+ grams a day, EVERY DAY, either!)

Posted 24 September, 2005 in Workouts