HDHITman's Current Training program and Journal

As you can see we inserted Back/Biceps in for yesterdays workout for 2 reasons first my partner is suffering with a little bit of a knee problem so Rack Pulls seems like a better idea, and second was several guys dominated the power rack yesterday when my partner finally got there.

Rack Pulls 365x5 increase weight
Bent over Rows 215x6
Underhand Pulldown 120x14
Preacher Curl 30x15 increase weight
Hammer Curl 25x12

Overall a great workout, pleased with all my numbers. Getting stronger and injury free so far and pleased with that and my body is starting to look more and more like I would like it too. Overall everything is going as planned so strength is up, size is up and body fat is being reduced so no complaints.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Due to a severe winter snow in Iowa and me having to scoop and snow blow many inches of heavy snow, which caused my knees to be very sore and my bursitis flare up I was not prepared to do legs. So I started my cycle of workouts over and will preform legs either Monday or Thursday of next week.

Dips BW(231)+70x3
Decline HS Press 320x4
Incline Flyes 40x16
Followed by a 45 sec DC style fascia stretch
HS Machine Laterals 25x13 added tension to the contracted position by attaching resistance band to movement arm and manually kept it taunt.
Supersetted with
DB Press 30x8
Followed by a 45 sec DC style fascia stretch
Decline Lying Triceps Ext 70x11
Supersetted with
Decline Close Grip Bench Press 70x6
Followed by a 45 sec DC style fascia stretch


Overall a another great workout, did realize on dips that my wrists are weak so I will buy some wrist wraps and be performing a superset of wrist ext and flexion after biceps on Back/Biceps day to start strengthening them. So far I am pleased with the increases in size and strength and my continued decrease in bodyfat am hopefully soon getting bodyfat tested and will post results.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 285x2
Leg Press 630x13
50% Set
Leg Press 380x10 narrow stance
Leg Curl 70x18
Toe Presses 180x5 These are performed with a 10 sec static hold at the top of each rep and 5 sec stretch hold in the bottom position of each rep.

Overall a good workout since it has been about 2 weeks from my last leg workout due to sore knees. I have currently dropped the leg ext from my program on Bill Sahli's advice and no longer have the knee pain I was experiencing (got knee pain after one workout due to leg ext irritating my bursitis, then it was made worse by the shoveling and snow blowing after most recent winter storm to hit the midwest).

Comments, Questions, Critiques, Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Rack Pulls 375x3
Bent-over Rows 215x9 increase weight
Underhand Pulldowns 125x13
Preacher Curls 35x15
Scott Curls 25x10

Overall a great workout and I am pleased with my continued progress in size, strength and body fat loss. As you can see that I performed Rack Pulls again due my leg workout taking alot more out of my recovery ability. Due to that I am thinking of putting the leg workout last in the cycle instead of having it inserted between the two upper body workouts but I will make that call later.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips 70x2 55x1x1
Decline Press (DB) 70x11
Incline Flyes 45x15 increase weight
HS Machine Lateral (with resistance band) 30x9
supersetted immediately with
DB Shoulder Press 30x9
Tricep Pressdown 75x13
supersetted immediately with
Bench Dips 35x4

Overall a decent workout, but I am realizing that my form on the dips is hindering my progress. So I will reduce my weight on dips to correct my form and work my way back up in this exercise as I progress. Hopefully this will enable me to make leaps and bounds of progress during this workout as well as I do the others.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Full Deads 335x5 increase weight
Bent-over Row 225x6
Underhand Pulldown 130x15 increase weight
Preacher Curl 40x13
Scott Curl 25x11

Overall I am pleased with the workout and my numbers are climbing rapidly and progress in my physique is helping me make the transformation into having a contest ready one nicely. I am also please that every workout I am able to surprise myself of my natural and training induced strength levels are, so I am going to keep moving forward with the program and see what other surprises I will find.

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 285x4
Leg Press 650x12x4x4 Rest Pause
DB Leg Curl 30x15

Skipped Exercise(s) Toe Presses, calves helped alot on the leg press and plus I didnt have any steam left after the leg curls.

Overall an awesome workout doubled my reps in the squat and increased the leg press weight by 20lbs and got 2 reps above the the low end of my rep range for the exercise. My legs are sore and really feeling it today and even last night after the workout, the walk around the mall helped a little to get blood flowing in the area dealt with some of the lactic acid.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips BW+50x4
Decline Press(DB) 80x6
Incline Flyes(DB) 50x12
Machine Lateral(added resistance in contracted position with resistance cord) 30x10
supersetted with
DB Press 30x10
Tricep Pressdown 77.5x12
supersetted with
Bench Dips 35x6

Overall a good workout, and I have finally found my groove for the Dip so will be working the weight up on that quickly. I have also found that my chest gets warm very quickly so I will be performing only 2 warm-ups instead of the normal four that I do for all other bodyparts so that I do not waste ability on the movement. So far very pleased with my progress and people in my life are noticing that the workouts and my nutrition are doing the job of getting me lean, increasing my strength, and gaining muscle mass.

Comments, Question, Critiques Welcome

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Rack Pulls 375x5 increase weight
Bent-over Rows 225x8 increase weight
Underhand Pulldown 135x13
Preacher Curl 45x11
Scott Curl 25x12

Overall a great workout pleased with all my numbers, as you can see did Rack Pulls to keep Legs fresh for Thursday's workout. Strength and mass are both up and I am very pleased with that, diet is on the right track due to the fact that I am doing more recomposition than actual weight loss on the scale so that is great that I am gaining muscle and losing bodyfat that I so need to get rid of. So I have to give credit is due, first I would like to thank Bill for helping to create the workouts and myself and my research to get the perfect hybrid diet that works well for me.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 295x1x1x1x1 (last one failed to go deep enough)
Leg Press 650x15 increase weight
Leg Curl (DB and using a decline ab board) 25x17

Skipped Calves because I first I was spent and second I feel they are getting great growth from the heavy lifting.

Overall I thought the workout was good, but need to work on powering it up out of the bottom. So to work on this I have decided to rotate how squats are performed.

For example:
Week 1: Regular Squats 4-R/P
Week 2: Regular Squats starting in the bottom position 4-R/P
Week 3: Regular Squat 3-5 reps/ test for the 4 week R/P

Also next week will be trying out a new pre-workouts supplements from APS Nutrition called Mesomorph and Creatine Nitrate for there body recomposition, recovery, and lean mass gain ability.

Also I am thinking of experimenting with a new layout for my workouts so see if I can train each bodypart once week and go to a modified two way split, that I will be posting here on Tuesday next week because I am starting the experiment on Monday next week and running it for three weeks.


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips 50x6 increase weight
Decline Press 85x7
Incline Flyes 50x16
HS Machine Lateral (resistance band connected for continuous tension and resistance in the contracted position) 30x11
supersetted with
DB Press 30x9
Decline Lying Tricep Ext 70x7
supersetted with
Tricep Pressdown on Lat Machine 70x7

Overall a great workout, but as you might have notice some of my numbers are down because of incorporation of Fat Gripz into my training last night. Fat Gripz are portable and attach to all conventional equipment so that you can train with a thick bar, so with using them last night for the first time my numbers were down due to some neural adaptation going on with some of the exercises that I used them on.

Other than a great workout I am going to make some tweeks to this workout to better my progress. One of those tweeks is that the Delt superset with be changed to HS Machine Laterals supersetted with DB Upright Rows, and as you can see I changed the Tricep superset to isolation exercises because I felt that Bench Dips was redundant movement. Also on Triceps I will also perform a straight set of each exercise as well periodically so that I can isolate each Tricep individually by doing one arm pressdowns to bring up the left Tricep that is smaller than the right.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Deadlift (Full) 355x4 New PR
Bent-over Row 225x10 increase weight
Underhand Pulldown (Fat Gripz) 140x9
Preacher Curl (Fat Gripz) 50x5
Scott Curl (Fat Gripz) 25x13

Overall I am very pleased with this workout especially the amount of strength I am gaining, I have in this short of time added 40 lbs to my old deadlift PR of 315x5. The addition of the Fat Gripz have made my workouts more demanding because of the extra focus and iron will I have to put into a set that I use them on, but the benefit of added grip strength and forearm development will make it all worth while.

I think my workouts will also continue to be more motivating if my strength and size continue to climb as it stands right now, plus my excitement level has been way up because of the addition of Cooper (Mar 9th 2011) to our family and my continued desire to be biggest and best Dad I can be.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips 60x3
Decline Press(DB) 85x9
Incline Flyes 55x13
Machine Lateral 30x12
supersetted with
DB Upright Rows 30x6
Decline Lying Tricep Ext 70x10 increase weight
Tricep Pressdown 77.5x13

As you can see this is not the normal workout for today it was suppose to be Legs, but due to some added stress with our new baby boy being home I knew I would be able to handle this workout instead. Legs will be moved to Thursday this week since things are falling into place with Cooper, and his sleeping through the night so I am very sure I will have the energy and focus to perform that workout as mentioned.

Overall I am pleased with this workout numbers are still continuing to climb in a positive direction and progress in being made in mass, strength and bodyfat losses. Will admit that the diet was off for about 3-4 days with the birth of my son, but is now getting back on track and I am feeling great.


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Rack Pulls 385x5 increase weight
Bent-over Rows 235x10 increase weight
Underhand Pulldowns (with fat gripz) 140x12
Preacher Curl (with fat gripz) 50x6
Scott Curl (with fat gripz) 25x15 increase weight
Superset of Ab work as well

Overall another great workout, as you can see not the normal workout for this rotation because still have not had the energy for a full leg day since the addition of baby Cooper to our family. On a positive note since he has adjusted well to life at home I am sure that I will have the energy for legs this coming Monday and I know I will rock it.

Also many of you have seen the addition of Fat Gripz to my training and I have to admit they are working wonders on my grip strength, forearm development, and development of all bodyparts I use them on and I only have 3-4 workouts under my belt. I do highly recommend adding these to any type of training for the above reason.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 295x2
Leg Press 650x17

Skipped the rest of the workout I just did not have the energy due to waking up with a sore throat and taking medicine for it, in retrospect should have just skipped it but had not done legs for about 2 weeks.

I have decided that I need to improve my form on squats and possibly change footwear to get a better groove for the lift, also I did not have the greatest spotter either. Going to work the low back and abs to build a stronger core base with hyperextension and ab rolling.

So the techniques I am going to use to improve all my Max Effort lifts by working the sticking points of each of those lifts. So the training cycles would look like this:

Cycle 1: Full Range of Motion 1 set of 3-5 establish a PR
Cycle 2: Top End Partials: Mid-way to Lockout 1 set 3-5 use heavier weight
Cycle 3: Bottom Position: Reverse Squat so basically bottom to top and back again 1 set 3-5 set with similar weight Cycle 1, could also use 1 1/4 squat from the bottom also.
Cycle 4: Full Range of Motion 1 set of 3-5 establish a New PR.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,




__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips 60x4
Decline (DB) Press 85x9 same as last week should have just increased the weight and went for 6
Incline Flyes 60x9
Machine Lateral 30x14 with band resistance
supersetted with
HS Shoulder Press 90x7
Decline Tricep Ext 75x8
Tricep Pressdown 80x10

Overall a decent workout since still a little sick with the sore throat. Use of the Fat Gripz is going great and I can already tell by the increase in forearm size and a small increase in overall grip strength. Also I have incorporated a non lock(just short of full extension and of full contraction) style of training on all of my exercises to increase the tension time of the muscle and help maintain recoil ability in the muscle.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Rack Pull 395x6 increase weight
Bent over Rows 245x8
Underhand Pulldown (with fat gripz) 140x16
Preacher Curl 50x8
Scott Curl (with fat gripz) 30x7

Overall a good workout pleased with my numbers because they can only go up. We did Rack Pulls so that we would not overtrain the legs, which will be Thursday's workout this week. Today I can really feel that my workout was effective due to manageable soreness and a slight pump that is more than likely due to the inflammation of the muscle during the repair process.

Also a twist for Thursday's workout of Legs/Abs is that I am as always going to use the squat as my max effort but starting the bottom position, and then rest and reduce bar poundage a set of 12-20 full range squats to work on form in the squat as well.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Bottom Position Squat 275x3
Regular Squat 185x10
Leg Curl (DB) 25x20
Toe Presses 500x10sec contraction hold
Ab roller 1min x failure
supersetted with
Hyperextensions BWx14

Overall a good workout, tried the bottom position squats in hopes of improving hip drive for the squat. That is also why I have decided to do squats twice, once for max effort and a second one of high reps to improve form and neural muscular efficiency of that exercise. Also started to add core work into the mix to help improve all our lifts max effort or otherwise.

On a side note will add grip and forearm work into our training 1-2 times per week after the Back/Biceps and Legs/Abs workout will monitor for any signs of overtraining of them as well. Also I am looking to reduce the volume of the workouts just a tad in hopes of continued progress in size, strength, and bodyfat loss.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 245x4
Weighted Hyperextensions 40x13
Double Crunchx7 with 5 sec contraction hold at the top of each rep.

Overall a good workout and I can feel it already today. As many of you will see my squat numbers are down but there is a reason for that because I want to start small and work up and in doing so I can improve my form and technique to become a powerful squatter at the same time.

I believe that doing it that way will help me build a solid base that I lack now due to mainly being a leg presser for leg development, it also allows for me to train heavy but still being able to learn the movement by performing reps. The assistance work should also help to increase hip and ab strength for added power in the squat.

Comments, Questions, and Critiques Welcome,

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Military Press (standing with BB) 135x3
Pulldown 145x16
Dip BWx11


Overall a good workout, and still feeling less drained with the lower volume so should be able to make great progress quickly. I am still working out the proper arrangement of exercises within workouts and in which workout those exercises will be in. Also post workout I have found that doind a 10 minute cool down of low intensity cardio helps with recovery by helping remove lactic acid better, and the sooner that is gone the sooner you compensate for the workout and the sooner you overcompensate so you can do the next workout.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,




__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Deadlift 365x3
Leg Press 670x12
Hanging Leg Raises BWx10

Overall a good workout, after looking back at old journals I have found that I have increased my deadlift by 50 lbs from my previous best of 315 lbs. So to make a long story short I am very pleased with my progress and hope for more of the same

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome




__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Dips 35x6
Bent-over Row 235x9 Will reduce weight here due to the fact that my grip strength (over use of wrist straps when doing heavy rows) has not caught up to my strength level in this movement. Will work back up so that grip strength will caught up quickly so that I can even more weight without straps.
Barbell Curl (Fat Gripz) 50x8
Tricep Dips BWx14

Overall a great workout only disappointing part of it was the BB Rows will need to do what I mentioned above. I am liking the new reduced volume workout and I am feeling great and little sore but I feel stronger and look bigger.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome




__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Squat 215x6
Weighted Hyperextensions 50x12
Captain's Chair Leg Raises BWx12
Incline DB(Fat Gripz) Hammer Curls 25x15 increase weight next workout

Overall a good workout and I am pleased with my progress, but as you can see squat weight is down but that is due to the fact that I really want to perfect my technique and form of the exercise so I can prevent any and all injuries now and later in my bodybuilding career. I am the type of guy that still wants to be able to squat late in life.

Diet is getting cleaned up and I am doing well on it so far, and on top of that going to be doing some type of low intensity activity everyday to stay active and burn fat, with maybe a few conditioning days in there as well doing say some hill sprints (will manage stress and workout frequency accordingly).

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Military Press 115x8
Pulldowns 160x12
Chest Dip BWx13
Bicep Curl 50x11

Overall a good workout pleased with my progress thus far, conditioning work also going well along with the post workout cool down on a cardio machine.

On the diet side things are doing well at a high ketosis level due to the fact that many of those ketones have spilled over into my urine so had a measureable level using the ketostixs.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome,


__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman

Deadlift 310x9
Leg Press 700x9
Lowered the rep range due to fact I believe I am getting better results in leg development when working in the 6-12 rep range on this exercise or even lower when I squat for max effort.
Ab worked skipped because after the deadlift felt like my abs got plenty of work.
Added:
Incline Hammer Curls w Fat Gripz 35x7

Overall a great workout and I can feel it today and I am loving it. After the workout I did a 10 min cooldown and while I cooked dinner on the grill I did 10 hill sprints to burn off any left over glucose in my system after my weekend carb load. By 8 pm already had ketone spill over into my urine as measured by ketostix so I will be in fat burning mode the rest of the week as long as I keep my carbs down. I will also to keep energy high for Thursday workout I found a little piece of info from Lyle McDonald how to measure carbs pre-workout to keep performance and his equation states that for every 2 work sets performed you need roughly 5g carbs to fuel them. So I do 3-4 work sets per workout so I need roughly 7.5g-10g carbs pre-workout to maintain intensity level and performance for my workouts.

Comments, Questions, Critiques Welcome




__________________
Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman
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