Another week down on my journey to the FLEX Pro and Arnold Classic. I switched up gyms this week, I discovered a new hardcore playground at Powerhouse North Tampa. LOVE this place. It brings me back to the days When I started training at Macks gym Toronto. Old machines, rusty bars, and lifting Chalk fills the air. There is just something about the way old equipment feels and the angles they used. I always wonder why they ever changed these things.
For the most part as of late, ive been training by myself. Its nice to have someone there to spot me, yell profanities, and slap me upside the head when anything other than winning and kicking ass enters my brain. So ,Layne Norton (PhD, contest prep coach, powerlifter/bodybuilder) invited me up to check out his gym (Powerhouse) and have a workout. I was fired up to train with someone new and take a little different approach then ive been following lately.
Layne and I planned to hit some legs. He loves to squat, I love to squat, I figured it could be a fun day that just might get ugly! I walked into the gym to meet Layne and he was already there warming up with some calve training. For those of you that don’t know Layne, hes a young guy, very passionate, very intelligent, just a plain old balls-out, kind of guy. The guy just straight gets fired up.
His suggestion was that we start leg training with deadlifts.
Sounded good to me, I figured he meant stiff leg, hamstring deads…nope! Good ole powerlifting style deadlifts. I attribute a lot of my lower body development, especially glutes to heavy deads in my younger years. Truth be told, I haven’t done them regularly for years and I want to get back to my old school hardcore badass style training (atleast more often than I have been. A balance of heavy stuff and meticulous execution stuff)!
We ended up doing around 5 working sets, each progressively heavier. We did what is called a reverse band deadlift. This is where you use rubber bands to assist you at the bottom of the rep (its probably assisting by 50-70lbs at the bottom, and nothing at the top), but about halfway up youre taking the entire weight. This will really overload and isolate the glutes and low back.
MAN I forgot how well those things hit your low back and glutes. I was destroyed!
We followed deadlifts with front squats, leg press, then leg extensions. I was pretty blown up after those deads and would have been happy to go home and crawl under a table somewhere, squats and leg press were tough.
Its days like that that I seriously contemplate buying Velcro shoes. Socks and shoe laces become the enemy when you cant touch your toes for 5 days.
I have been training at this new hardcore mecca in Tampa ever since. When training up to 3 times a day, having a number of gyms to choose from is very appealing
Sitting around 8 weeks out now, weight is 297 and bodyfat dropping quickly. Carbs are very low, but protein and veggies are high. Hitting some HIIT cardio
Every morning on the stepmill for 45mins. Life is good and on track for bringing my best package ever!
