Tag: pull

• Hindsight 20/20! Final Verdict on my Eye Recovery!

  Yesterday was a very interesting day in regards to my eye recovery. They usually say that when you age, things get weaker or more dim. I was struggling to tell which eye saw better in midst of all this recovery and suddenly it came down to my test to see the rate of recovery and well…for the first time ever, I’m seeing 20/20.

  I normally used to see 25/27 or 23/25 but to finally see 20/20, let alone after a cornea abrasion?  I felt like that was unheard of! This means that for the first time in my life, I do not need prescription glasses. Despite that, I will lkely get glasses for cosmetic wear, mainly just to protect myself because I do not want to risk having my eye poked out or even have liquids splash in my eye.

  Having said that, yesterday I decided to tackle on my push training, mainly with the intent to see where my strength is at. From the bar to max weight and each set being 5 reps, I was able to go from 45 to 205, which means my body is beginning to rewire and re-engage. Given that everyone and their mother was using the squat racks, smith machines and even dumbbells, I decided to bite the bullet and do landmine shoulder presses. It definitely put me to work in a new way as it engages some obliques, core musculature along with the triceps and shoulders but damn…I was able to finish at doing 75 pounds with each arm struggling to do 5 reps. I definitely knew I was coming back with a vengeance when I saw I was able to finish a whole pyramid on tricep extensions with 70 pounds, given that 2 months ago, I struggled with 55.

  I’m curious to see what my body does with pull day today.

  01/16/2019

  2020, finalverdict, Fitness, Health, hindsight, pull, push, recovery, rongunz, strength, training, vision

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• The Journey Part 3.1 – The Big 6

  Hey Gunz Crew,

  Hope everyone has started off to an interesting January. Whether you’re aiming to lose weight, get swole, develop better as a musician, artist, employee, employer and what have you, I hope all is coming along somehow.

  Having said that, this is part 3.1 of the fitness journey that I’ve been chronicling for some time now. Part 1 was all about how I got into weightlifting, how I got into exercising altogether and part 2 dealt with how I developed myself in regards to nutrition to further my goals. Part 3.1 is about my favorite routine to start a workout week — The Big 6.

  Usually I like to give myself an overall feel of where am I physically overall if I’m starting the week. While a lot of people celebrate International Chest Monday, I like to work on what I call The Big 6. The Big 6 consists of Bench Press, Squats, Deadlifts, Shoulder Press, Pull-ups and Dips. What’s awesome about doing these for a workout session is that it sounds the alarm to your body to wake up and grow! If I start off with the Bench, I’ll go to Dips afterwards and lastly Shoulder Press before I swing ahead to Deadlifts, Squats and Pull-ups.

  I usually like to arrange it based on which parts I wanna tear down first. Personally, due to the nature of my delivery work involving lifting, pushing and pulling a lot of appliances, I like to zero in on Deadlifts first. There is, though, a rule of thumb I have in respect to Deadlifts and Pull-ups. If I do underhand grip on Deadlifts, I’ll do regular Pull-ups but if I do over hand, I’ll resort to chin ups. The reason behind this is because when I do underhand grip, I find my biceps being activated just a little bit.

  As far as sets and reps, it varies on my goals — whether it’s endurance, functional or explosive.

  If I’m aiming to boost my endurance, I’ll start off with 30% of my bodyweight and do a pyramid (slightly increasing the weight after each set) of 15 reps. Once I get to that last set that I can barely do 15 repetitions on, I go into drop set mode (slightly decreasing the weight after each set) and do repetitions until failure instead of just 15 reps. I do this with the intent of working the muscle until it is thoroughly spent.

  If I am aiming for overall functional strength, where I need to get some power thrown in but just enough to move things along (like when need to push heavy objects through a few times just to get it in place), my pyramid will consist of a starting point of 40% of my bodyweight with that half of the routine aiming for 3-5 repetitions (3 when I’m definitely in the grind, 5 if I am still feeling it out). Rep until failure on the way down folks.

  Finally, when I’m itching to see what my explosive power is like and what I may be capable of (definitely helps when it comes to days of shoulder strapping aplliances up flights of stairs or maneuvering them around for delivery), I start at 50% bodyweight and do 1 rep per set when doing the pyramid half. It will, at first, feel silly as shaking hands with a lollypop but once you start dialing up further towards your last one, you’ll realize what a monster you have sleeping inside you. For the drop set, rep until failure as always.

  01/23/2016

  2016, 6, bench, benchpress, big, blog, chin, chinups, deadlift, deadlifts, dips, endurance, exercise, explosive, Fitness, functional, gunz, journey, lifting, new, newyear, out, power, powerlifting, press, pull, pullups, ron, rongunz, squats, strongman, the, thebig6, thejourney, ups, wellness, working, workingout, year

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