Amazing what a recovery week can do to you!

It really is amazing what some rest can do for your mind and body. I am felling more energetic and in good spirit today. When I left my house to go to work, I was not sure if I will go to gym or take more rest. But as the day progressed I felt good about myself. I stretched a bit to see if any of the muscles are sore. No. Not at all. I decided to go ahead and hit the gym .

It was a good thing too. I did not feel tired, just fatigued after the work out. And guess what? I got 9, 7 and 5 reps for my benchpress with 110 lbs. You know what that means? It means its time to up the weight for the next benchpress. I can finally do a benchpress with 35 lbs on either side of the bar for the next time! It is time for the elusive weight to become true for the first time. It is so much fun to set goals and try to reach them. It is like building a house, brick by brick while you have the final completed house firmly imprinted in your mind.

Even the deadlifts felt easy. I was able to do 190 lbs with relative ease. Finally I can do a plate and 25 lbs for my next deadlift. All good. But I still have a long way to go to reach my goal of benchpressing a plate on either side. I know the target. I know the path. It is now just a matter of time.

Filed under: benchpress, deadlifts, energy, recovery, rest

Relation between muscle and lifts

I found this interesting article, that tries to form a relation between muscle gain and the gain in the lifts. In the article the author gives a very simple relation between the amount of muscle you gain and the increase in 1 rep max weights for deadlift, squat and bench press. While it may not be accurate and perhaps not applicable to everyone it gives us a chance to formulate and set good goals.

According to the author if you gain x lbs of muscle then you should be able to lift 4.5 times x lbs more weight in your deadlift. So for every lb of muscle you gain you should life 4.5 lbs more than you did before the gain. All the calculations are based on 1 rep max. Similarly for every lb of muscle you gain you should be able to sqaut about 4 lb more and bench press about 3 lb more.

So for my next muscle gaining phase I will use this information and come up with better goals for my deadlifts, squats and bench press.

Filed under: bench press, deadlifts, lifts, muscle gain, squats

I live by the numbers: Compound Exercises

In my previous post I wrote about my body weight, muscle weight and fat % goals. Today I will write about my weight training goals, in particular about my compound exercise goals. If I have to choose the 5 best exercises I would choose the following exercises and in that order

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Bench Press
• Pull ups
• Overhead Press

It is very easy to understand why I like them. These are the exercises where I can lift heavy. Heavy like lifting close to or more than your body weight. Lifting so much weight simply means one thing, those exercise require more number of muscles and also mostly bigger muscles. One cannot bicep curl one’s body weight. The muscle is way too small and no other big muscles are involved. Also the distance these weights are moved is big. Work done is weight times the displacement. So you do more work moving the weights to a longer distance. Engaging more muscles means more hormone response, more repair and more muscles!

Now back to my goals. On October 1, 2009 this is what I could lift in my first work set

• Squats: 150 lbs, 10 reps
• Deadlifts: 170 lbs, 10 reps
• Bench Press: 90 lbs, 10 reps
• Pull ups: Body Weight + 15 lb, 10 reps
• Overhead Press: 60 lb, 10 reps

And this is my goal by the end of December 2009

• Squats: 185 lbs, 8 reps
• Deadlifts: 200 lbs, 8 reps
• Bench Press: 120 lbs, 8 reps
• Pull ups: Body Weight + 25 lbs, 8 reps
• Overhead Press: 85 lbs, 8 reps

Let us see if I can reach my goals. I am confident that I can.

Filed under: bench press, best exercise, deadlifts, goals, muscle gain, squats

Squats make me dizzy

I hate squats but I love them. Every time I go to gym to do squats, a feeling of resentment and fear takes over me. I resist those feelings and put on a weight with which I can do warm ups (usually about 60% to 70% of my work weight). Once I rip through them I gain some confidence. But as soon as I do my first work set I know why I hated squats in the first place. It is not because every part of my body hurts. But because of the dizzy feeling of the aftermath.

By the 6th or 7th rep I am breathing heavily, panting almost and the very strong urge to stop doing any more reps creeps in. I force my self to do a couple more if I can. Move slowly to rack the barbell and once the weight is off my back I feel my head reel as if I am going to faint. I just have to hold on to the squat rack and stay there without moving lest I blackout. But after the 3 work sets that I normally do, I feel great. Almost proud to have achieved my goal for the day.

Squats are considered to be the best exercise in body building circles and for a good reason too. The sheer number of muscles being used to push a heavy load is proof enough that it is really the best exercise. Doing squats also works out the biggest muscles in the body (almost all leg muscles and then some). Which means more growth hormone will be produced by your body to repair those huge muscles. So you gain muscle more quickly. This is especially good for skinny guys.

When I first started I was only able to do 100 lbs, not even a plate on either side. Now I can do 150 lb. I don’t feel dizzy when I am doing deadlifts though. May be I am not at the highest weight yet for deadlifts. We will see.

Filed under: best exercise, deadlifts, dizzy, squats, best exercise, deadlifts, dizzy, squats