DAY 27 - LATS GO

DAY 27 - 10th JULY 2015

TRAINING - BACK & CARDIO

WEIGHTS DURATION: 67mins                    CARDIO DURATION: 27mins

I have yet another confession to make and I'm sure you can guess what it is. Whilst watching a film last night, I didn't hold back and ended up having some ice cream. Screw you Hagen Dazs! Yet another relapse which isn't good and all I can do it offer my apologies, but my chubby, little devil got the better of me. A bit annoying considering I fly home on thursday and we don't have many sessions left. Today were back at back and concentrating on lats again. 

I unfortunately didn't do anything on the ab plate this morning, a cuddled up girlfriend in bed fast asleep was waaaay too hard to leave.

THE WORKOUT

I really wanted/needed a high intensity session to try and burn as much of that ice cream off as possible. Having deadlifted yesterday to get the back nice and warm, I was able to get straight into it today and didn't have to do any more dead lifting today. I wanted to try and continue the good progress with the lats with a combination of 5 exercises.

EXERCISE ONE

ONE ARM ROW - 5 SETS - 15 REPS EACH SIDE

 

Either I'm not looking probably or I'm going crazy; I'm sure we have done the one arm row at some point of the program but I can't seem to find it. If this is its debut, the let me tell you its a killer exercise for the lats. I like to vary up the speed usually, but was looking to pump out at high intensity for reasons I posted at the top of the blog. Just be sure to fully straighten the arm when you come back down and then bring it up as high as you can to nail perfect form.

EXERCISE TWO

OLYMPIC CORNER BAR ROW - 5 SETS - 15 REPS

Now this exercise is definitely a debutant and another great one for the lats. Using the handle shown in the middle picture and wedging the bar in a corner where two walls meet, look to bend the legs and bring the weight up and hold for 1-2 seconds at the top. Its important to have decent control when doing this exercise - trust me, you don't want the other end kicking up. If you're a paranoid pete and anxious that the bar might kick up, get your partner to lightly stand on it, not to restrict the movement, just to make sure it doesn't flip over. 

EXERCISE THREE

ROPE PULL - 4 SETS - 20 REPS

We haven't done this since day 1! What a lifetime ago that feels like! We did a variation of the exercise on day 16 where we stood up straight with high cables opposed to sitting in. The difference between the two is having the cables high will concentrate on the upper part of the back and sitting in will concentrate more on the mid back. Again, I did 20 reps fast and had limited rest period.

EXERCISE FOUR

WIDE PULL UPS - 3 SETS - 5 REPS

 

The last time I did these on day 22 I said I was bored of getting just 5 reps at a time and that I'd try and get more out. Unfortunately, I failed at that. However, the last time I did them it was at the start of a session opposed to 14 sets and 3 exercises deep, so I guess 5 reps isn't that bad for me.

EXERCISE FIVE

SUPERSET; BENT OVER ROPE LAT PULL & CLOSE HAND LAT PULL DOWN - 3 SETS

Complete exercise A and then B to complete one set.

EXERCISE A - BENT OVER ROPE LAT PULL - 20 REPS

The first super-set that we've done in a couple of days! Good to be back. Easily the back exercise I've done the most, not quite an ever present but almost. Just a brilliant exercise that works both with a slow or fast tempo. To follow suit, I did it fast and got more reps out than day 22 but with the same weight which was a good feeling.

EXERCISE B - CLOSE HAND LAT PULL DOWN - 20 REPS

 An exercise that we haven't done since day 7 which I also managed to get more reps out on with a heavier weight which again was a good confidence booster; always nice to see when you're getting stronger. I did these at a fast tempo again, and held the handles just under the diaphragm for 1-2 seconds. 

THE CARDIO

Yesterday I was complaining about having heavy legs, so It was probably real stupid to do 10 sets of deadlifts because subsequently, it feels like someone has gone over my hamis several times with a rusty rake. So instead of doing the cross trainer, I thought i'd be sensible and do a little bit of bike. All was absolutely fine until about 23 minutes when a real twinge in my groin started playing up. Instead of causing an injury, I decided to stop 4 minutes later when it wasn't going away. Not ideal, but better than injuring myself and not being able to do any cardio at all in the remaining 5 sessions.

THE DIET

Meal 3

Meal 1

• 2 Boiled eggs (no Yolks)
• 1 Small bowl Fitness cereal
• 1 Apple

Meal 2

• 1 Boiled egg
• 1 Tin of Tuna
• 15 Almonds

Meal 4

Meal 3

• 250g White fish
• 100g Rice
• 100g Broccoli

Meal 4

• 150g Steak
• 50g Broccoli
• 25g Asparagus

FINAL THOUGHTS

W1 D6 - DAY 6 OVERALL

W3 D6 - DAY 20 OVERALL

Pretty annoyed that I had ice cream again last night and we seem to be in this rut; eat and train hard, relapse, repeat. However, it had paved the way for another good day today with a high intensity and a decent diet. The finish line really is near and I need to sort it out to get me over the finish line in the best possible shape. A little worried about my groin, but I'm sure it'll be fine for tomorrows new kind of session, aerobic with weights; my training partner is conducting a session that I said I'd go along to.

Salut!

W2 D6 - DAY 13 OVERALL

W4 D6 - DAY 27 OVERALL