Here I am, now a little over eight weeks into this effort, and I am in much, much better shape than I have been for a long time.  Yet, I’ve only ridden my bike twice.   That’s a shame in and of itself, but my two little guys just haven’t been chomping at the bit to ride with me.  Unwilling or seriously discontent passengers in the bike trailer can be a problem.   I guess I’d push the issue a lot more if I weren’t doing this bodybuilding routine.

So, I’ve been doing the superset routine I put together after watching the two free workout videos I got, and have become quite a believer in the approach.

A bit of a confession is in order…. I had heard of supersets a long time ago.  It’s just that the guy that told me about them was not a great communicator… actually annoying… and didn’t seem to be getting any results from whatever workout he was doing.

When I came across the superset workout consisting of compound exercises, I thought it would be an “easy” workout to get more of my body exercising in a shorter time.  I figured I’d be lucky if I could do three workouts a week, and in fact, I haven’t been able to at least three times in the last eight weeks… My hunch was right.  Sometimes circumstances just prevented me from getting to it.

What I didn’t know was how hard it would be to do a single superset of ten exercises.  I guess my old perception of a superset was just two or three exercises focused on one muscle, like biceps.  My years of meager progress following the advice in the Mike Mentzer course I bought eons ago brainwashed me into thinking anything more than one set would be overtraining.

To be fair, Mentzer was on to the notion that most people can’t work out like professional bodybuilders.  There was no middle ground, though.  It was one set done to failure per muscle.  Period.  That didn’t do anything for cardio conditioning… nor did it intend to.

So, I had all kinds of mental roadblocks to overcome.  I’m glad I did.  Not only did the first “week” of three supersets of 15 reps prove to be brutally difficult for me, it was impossible!

The approach Vince DelMonte laid out, of 3 supersets of 15 for two weeks, 4 supersets of 10 reps for two weeks, and 5 supersets of 5 reps for two weeks really did something great…  The lighter weight you start with to make it through 15 reps of any one exercise helps avoid injury.  It also builds endurance in the muscles involved.   Work capacity, I think it may be called. As I’ve blogged in earlier posts, it took me at least two weeks to be able to finish three supersets, and that was just because I was gasping for air.  Only after running into that complete cardio wall did I realize this workout was great cardio exercise too.

My wife had been running intermittently prior to our starting to lift weights, and was therefore in much better shape from a cardio perspective.  She was able to keep on going as I had to slow down when we finally attempted to do two sets…. The same thing happened in our third sets the first couple of times we did them.

Moving to 4 supersets of 10 reps allows you to increase your weights, but you know that that last superset is going to be tough…   Finally, at five sets of five, you can put more strain on your muscles with even heavier weights, but still not enough to hurt yourself… because you KNOW five sets will be tough to finish.

My wife and I fell out of sync for two weeks, and Friday, two days ago, was the first time she did a 5×5, and my fifth time through.  When she “complained” I was slowing her down, I got her to adjust her weights a little, going a little heavier,  and we finished at the same pace.

The cardio benefit is stunning.  The strength benefit is stunning.

Because I don’t have a belt for adding weight to do dips, I wanted to do “a little more” than the previous workout, and therefore did five sets of 10 dips.  Fifty dips in a day, within an hour and ten minutes, actually, and I lived to talk about it!

To give you an idea of how far I’ve come (and I will post pictures… maybe in one week), when I started, I could only do three or four dips, and had to jump up and do negatives to try to get anywhere near 15 reps….

It’s a big deal to me… and I actually don’t care if anyone thinks otherwise.  I use this as a particular example of building strength I’ve never had… a proof of sorts that this routine is great.

If you have read earlier posts, my wife and I started on this in part to test the theory posed by DelMonte that this kind of routine and intensity makes your body produce its own growth hormone, and that growth hormone is the best fat-burning catalyst we have.  My wife is slimming down fast, too.  Her coworkers have been asking her what she’s been doing, she’s fitting into clothes she hasn’t worn in a couple of years… and on and on.

Getting back in shape lifting weights has to be the best-kept secret out there…  Really.

Now that I’ve posted the free workout routine videos from DelMonte’s blog site (allowed, of course), I’ve been able to watch a couple of times. I’ve been all over the map on my recollections of when I finally got through three sets, how many weeks of that, etc.

All I know is that this week marked the transition into five sets of five reps of each exercise.

We went away for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and stayed with family right near Cape Cod. Let’s just let it suffice to say I did not eat or sleep all that well… but I had a heck of a lot of sorely needed fun.

We were all a bit wiped out on Monday, and made the call that this week would be a Tues-Thurs-Sat workout week. It turned out that my wife’s schedule changed, so we haven’t worked out together yet this week. Tuesday’s workout had a huge break after the first set. I can’t remember exactly, but I know it had something to do with the boys. So, as I re-started the routine on set two, my perspective on weights was a little off. I increased weight on a couple of exercises I may not have if I’d never had that break.

Today I finished the five sets of five reps in one hour and 15 to 20 minutes. I had increased weight on a few of the exercises, pushing hard. I read the free “Insane Muscle Gain” report from Vince DelMonte and was inspired to up my intensity. Mind you, I only had about 4 hours of sleep…

In trying to figure out how many reps for the body weight exercises like dips I should do, I figured that I should probably try to do just a little more than last week’s 4 sets of 10 reps, so I settled on 5 sets of 9 for dips. 45 dips on the day… and I pulled it off, without compromised form.

In fact, the reduction in reps to five helped a lot for all the exercises. I tried pushing up the weights I use for every other exercise… Success!

The intensity of the superset workout can not be understated. I have read more and more about intense resistance training having more cardio benefit than hours on a treadmill or bike. The clincher I read today: If you can actually watch television (at a gym) while you’re “working out,” you’re not working anywhere remotely near the intensity you should be for any benefit. I can’t argue with that one bit.

Maybe I worked too close to “failure” over the last couple of weeks doing ten reps, but with the five reps, it seemed easier to just get five out and get on to the next exercise. It felt like a different kind of intensity doing the more rapid transition from muscle group to muscle group. I quickly began to sweat profusely… There’s a psychological benefit to “I only have to do five?” which I find encourages me to push harder through reps with the extra weight.

Tonight I’ll definitely get more sleep, and tomorrow I’ll finish my first week of 5 x 5. Today is the 10th of July… so seven or so weeks into it since May 18… and I’m using weights nearly double what I started this program with on most exercises. I have to admit that when I started, I didn’t think I had this kind of reserve left in me, nor did I think I’d progress as fast as I have. I’m enjoying progress!

It turns out that I had forgotten a few details when I started this routine on May 18th. I had combined the content of two of DelMonte’s free videos to create a compound exercise full body routine.

What I had forgotten was the number of reps/set, rest, and number of supersets per week.

I think my inability to get through more than one superset during that first week threw me for a loop. My old habits included doing a set, and then waiting until I was good and ready to do another set.. of the same exercise. Blasting from one exercise to another with only 60 seconds rest was just something I hadn’t done. Ever. And, make no mistake, when you try it with compound exercises for the first time, you’ll find it’s tough too.

It took me about four weeks to catch on that the routine required changing the number of reps/exercise and supersets done every two weeks. I think there was also a promo around that time that consisted of a 12 week, transform-your-body-contest open to anyone purchasing the program. Since I thought this free video workout was a 12 week program at three supersets of 15 reps per exercise, I’d say I mixed them all up.

So, here’s what it’s supposed to be:
3 sets of 15 reps/exercise for two weeks
4 sets of 10 reps/exercise for two weeks
5 sets of 5 reps/exercise for two weeks

For the exercises… a couple of caveats first:
I work out in my basement, and I’m tall enough that I can not do a standing military press without hitting the ceiling. I also own a Hoist home gym that has a weight stack for pulldowns. I otherwise don’t have a good place for pullups/chinups.

Deadlift
Flat barbell bench press
Squat
Bent over row
Clean
Seated dumbbell military press
Plate Chopper
Pull downs
Dips
Reverse Incline Leg Raises

And this, dear readers, is a killer weight lifting routine.

At the end of the routine, I have more often than not added oblique crunches, two or three sets per side. I’ve also added one pass through a shoulder superset with really light weight a few times. My shoulders have always been a weak spot in my mind.

Check out proper form, and review the rest/repetition info in these free workout routine videos.

Again, if you’re just getting back in shape, be careful! Even with very light weights, you will be shocked at how hard you work to do a superset if you’ve never done one. Don’t give up if it takes a few weeks to get do three supersets of 15 reps per exercise. This workout routine will rapidly transform your body.

For those getting back in shape: I’d suggest getting to the point or fitness level where you can do three sets…. THEN consider yourself “starting” this workout routine, doing two weeks of sets of 15 reps, then going to 4 sets of 10, then 5 of 5.

Let me know how you do!

Bodybuilding over 40…
I am sure glad I landed on Vince DelMonte’s info when I did. I recently did a few searches on “bodybuilding over 40″ and browsed a couple of “supplements are awesome” sights. The only bodybuilders over 40 I could find in my quick check of any discussion of age and bodybuilding had been bodybuilding since their early 20s. Granted, I found a few impressive guys, over 70 even, who were big and ripped… but had been doing it for 40 years, obviously with gifted genetics.

I did feel a bit self-conscious when I used the term “bodybuilding” to describe my efforts. After all, I don’t own a speedo and I’m not going to shave my chest or my legs… but I am working hard on building muscle. I’m not just toning. I’m lifting. I’m not just doing a few sets of bench presses and squats to maintain my current muscle mass. I’m going through a routine, increasing weight and intensity, to grow.

I guess it was a bit of a sanity check that led me out into the big, bad world of relentless nonsense on bodybuilding. One blog post written by some pro bodybuilder talked about weights to use if you are over 40 and going to start training again… I could swear I read “for the bench, pick a light weight, about 225lbs, to re-introduce yourself to training.”

I can’t even imagine trying lifting my old maximum workout weights… especially doing supersets of compound exercises. But I started light, and built up some endurance, and strength, and am making great progress. It’s not about “benching 200″ which was a high school taunt… (I can’t remember what my old max bench weight ever was, because I was doing inclines for the years I tried the Mentzer routine.) It’s not about the weight, or the reps, it’s about building muscle. If I can do it with a 10 pound dumbbell, doing the crazy shoulder superset at the end of my workout, that’s what it is.

If you’re thinking about getting back in shape yourself, go for it! Start with really light weights… maybe even “just the bar” so you can get your form down and ease into it so you don’t hurt yourself. There’d be not much worse than getting all psyched up to start building muscle again and have to stop because you hurt your shoulder, for example.

I’ve been healthy, not gaining much weight, no hypertension, etc, so it was a lot easier for me to get back in to a routine. Still, it took me four weeks to get to three times through DelMonte’s superset routine. So if you’ve not done any exercise lately, make sure your doctor clears you, and start fast walking or biking to get your heart used to beating hard. Then, I’d do the routine I started with, and go once through it. When you change your old training method from “waiting around until I recover as much as possible to do the next set of the same exercise” model to the superset model, your body will change quickly.

Tomorrow, if I don’t actually get the sore throat bug going through my family, I’ll start the second week of 4 by 10. Need some sleep too, so with that, I’m off for tonight.

All day I wondered why I felt so tired, so wiped out, so sore.    I had changed the routine a little bit.  Instead of the clean I substituted an upright row.  My elbows have been aching, and I thought the clean motion might be responsible.  Actually, not warming up enough might be playing a big role….  Thinking about it, I suppose increasing the weight I use for the clean might have also played a part.  For all I know it could be the arms of the chairs in which I sit when I blog pressing on my tendons “just so.”

All things equal, for whatever reason, my elbows have been aching a little, so something had to give.  I wanted to sub another compound exercise  for the clean, and settled on the upright row.

I’ve read all about “muscle confusion” and “turbulence training” and even DelMonte talks about switching up routines.  I didn’t figure I’d change the routine until I finished with the 12-week-transform-your-body-routine…  You know, try to power through to measure “before” and “after” results of that one routine…  but I couldn’t figure out what kicked my butt so badly.  Today was one of the days I dreaded when I used to think about getting back in shape… sore, achy everywhere, tired.  We had a bug run through the rest of the family this past week, so I thought I might be getting sick.  For all I know I am, but my shoulders really ached with soreness today.

Then it dawned on me… besides being the end of the first week of doing 4 sets of 10 reps for each exercise of the super set, I wanted something different to work obliques… side crunches didn’t seem to be doing it for me.  so I had added twisting cable pulls.  I had forgotten.  I had seen the exercise in one of DelMonte’s promotional videos.

I had gotten a false sense of security with compound exercises, and added another for obliques.  It might have been a bit much.

I did two sets for each side, since it was the end of a very tough workout.  That explains a lot of soreness.

I don’t think I mentioned this yet, but when I went back to look through the original videos, I realized I had been missing a couple of important details about doing the routine.  Off the top of my head, I think I was supposed to do three sets of 15 for only two weeks, or maybe three, then go to 4 sets of 10 for two weeks, then to 5 sets of 5.  It took me and my wife three full weeks to get to the point we could even finish the superset routine 3 times.  So we’re a little “behind schedule.” No big deal, though, progress is still huge.  Yesterday I got two sets of ten dips followed by two sets of 9.  Never would I have believed you if you told me I’d be able to do 38 dips in one day.  So, there is progress.

One more week of 4 sets with 10 reps each exercise… Still don’t have the diet thing down, but still making progress.