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!
Tags: Barbell Bench Press, Bent Over Row, Body Contest, Caveats, Chinups, Compound Exercise, Compound Exercises, Dear Readers, Delmonte, Dips, Flat Barbell Bench Press, Get In Shape, Getting Back In Shape, Getting In Shape, Home Gym, Military Press, Old Habits, Pulldowns, Superset, Video Workout, Weight Lifting Routine, Weight Stack, Workout Routine
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.
Tags: Bench Presses, Bodybuilder, Bodybuilders, Bodybuilding Over 40, Building Muscle, Compound Exercises, Delmonte, Endurance, Getting Back In Shape, Increasing Weight, Light Weights, Maximum Workout, Muscle Mass, Pound Dumbbell, Squats, Superset, Supersets
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.
Tags: Butt, Chairs, Compound Exercise, Compound Exercises, Delmonte, Elbows, False Sense Of Security, Getting Back In Shape, Little Bit, Muscle Confusion, Muscle Training, Sense Of Security, Shoulders, Side Crunches, Sit, Tendons, Turbulence Training, Upright Row, Workout
So it turns out I had forgotten some of the details of the free 12 week body transformation workout routine I had received from Vince DelMonte.
I was supposed to be doing three sets of 15 reps of each exercise, supersetting them in one 10 exercise monster set… for only three weeks.
I had barely been able to get through one of these supersets when I first started. It took nearly four weeks to get to the point I attempted three sets.
As I reviewed the program, I re-learned that I should already have been in the four supersets of ten exercises phase… oh well, I guess.
Here’s a point from me.. I’m not in my mid twenties looking to pack on 41 pounds of muscle to go out to clubs and meet girls interested in guys who just put on 41 pounds of muscle… I do want to put on as much as I can, because, quite frankly, I am getting great results and it is downright fun to be succeeding. Really! So it’s taken my 48 year old bones some time to rebuild the stamina to get through multiple supersets. Now I’m trying to stick more to the program.
Another point of progress… laugh if you will, but today is the first time in my life I could do ten bodyweight dips. I did it on my first set, and still managed to do nine in each of the following three sets. This program is still kicking butt. Even when I was going to a gym regularly in my early thirties, 12 years ago, and leg pressing nearly 400 pounds on one of the sled machines, I couldn’t do more than four or five dips. I felt so pathetic I never did them. Pushing myself in the basement is a lot easier. We’re fortunate to have a lot of weights in our basement. It’s making our working out together possible. This is one aspect of “my stuff” my wife isn’t complaining about my dragging from house to house as we moved! My musical gear.. that’s another story, but we’re doing the dips between massive PA speaker cabinets I still have! Now that I’m getting back in shape I know I’ll be able to move the gear more easily once I start gigging again.
My wife and I looked at her travel schedule this past weekend and decided to set our workout days as Sunday-Tues-Thurs for this week. Sunday was our first time through four sets. We were wiped out from lack of sleep, my parents’ visit, the boys not sleeping one night, so opted to make today, Wednesday the day. I know we’d get maximum muscle gain strictly following Delmonte’s program to the letter, but, as I said previously, our middle-aged lives are rather complicated. Flexibility is key to staying with the program for us.
My wife is making great progress too, and has become quite the believer of Vince’s theory on growth hormone being an amazing fat-burning catalyst. She is not pushing herself as hard on each exercise as I am, but plenty hard to build muscle, and has fit into her size 8 jeans for the first time in four years. Yesterday we were talking, and she guessed we’d been working out 8 or more weeks… I think she actually said 10 weeks… based on the rapid progress and weight loss she has been making. She was shocked to learn we’d only started our 6th week of working out together on Sunday.
I can attest to the growth hormone-fat loss connection myself. I haven’t put on any more “love handle” even though I’ve been indulging… My wife baked the best cookies in the world for me with our boys for my birthday, I had a small piece of father’s day cake with my sisters and parents and my family, I had two beers and greasy appetizers at a restaurant on my birthday, followed up by a small cake chaser…. all since my last blog entry! (Not a model I suggest following!!!) I’m not gorging on cheat food, but I’m not eating like a bodybuilder for sure. I imagine my gains would be even better if I cut out the cheat food and ate stricter percentages of protein, carbs, and fats…
I know I mentioned I intended to alter my diet to maximize my gains, but I’ve been pretty lazy about that. I like to eat. I eat well 99% of the time… My biggest indulgences are pasta and tiny bit of ice cream. About once a week my little guys shriek with joy for pizza night. I’ve been having a protein snack before bed, eating a small bit of leftover chicken or steak or burger from dinner, or two tablespoons of peanut butter (9 grams of protein? Who knew?) We eat a lot of fruit and fresh vegetables in our house, eggs for breakfast, juices are kept to a minimum. I’ll shift to five meals vs. four, then possibly six a day. I won’t deny myself the joy of my little guys jumping at the chance to ride with their dad to go get the pizza… But I’ll cut down the number of slices I eat.
I liked the transition to four sets of 10 reps for each exercise. I increased weights for nearly everything. The stamina in all my muscles felt like a limiting factor, although I know I benefited from the intensity of that oxygen debt. Today was the second time through four sets, and while it was difficult, I got through it in an hour and 20 minutes.
Really, Vince DelMonte’s program… you should check it out.
Tags: Body Transformation, Bodybuilding Over 40, Bodyweight, Butt, Delmonte, Dips, Exercises, Get In Shape, Getting Back In Shape, Laugh, Mid Twenties, Monster, Old Bones, Pa Speaker, Speaker Cabinets, Stamina, Supersets, Thirties, Time In My Life, Weights, Workout Routine
Like I’ve said previously, sleep is a precious commodity. Heck, I’m writing this at 12:48 AM. But time to focus only comes after the kids are asleep, and their Aunt dropped by today and wound up reading several books to them in bed… They finally passed out very late.
We only managed to work out Tuesday and Saturday. Both days we got through three sets of the routine. Both days I got more unassisted dips done than ever before. That felt good. Building endurance through weight training is a route I really never would have considered before signing on to Vince DelMontes’ program. I would have hopped on my bike. I should do that, and will, but have given priority to trying to get my garage and workshop in order. Lame, but it really is out of control.
I’m still making great gains. It’s still just under a month, and I’m still increasing weights on exercises even though I’ve struggled to complete three sets in under an hour. Maybe tomorrow, or later today I should say, I’ll keep all the weights the same as my workout yesterday. This time, I definitely recovered better, again reminding me that I’m making progress. Last week at this time I was in dire shape with muscle knots and far more tired. If I can get through the routine in an hour or less, I’d be convinced I’m improving my endurance tremendously.
I’m 6′ 2+” and started working out weighing just over 180 pounds. I was only able to do a couple of body weight dips when we started working out, especially since they are near the end of the routine. I’ll “weigh in” again tomorrow, but I think I was a leaner 185 this morning.
If the kids sleep, and I wrap this up soon, I’ll be getting about 6 hours of sleep, which unfortunately, is a lot for me.
Enough for today’s update. I need sleep to push myself tomorrow.
Tags: Books, Dips, Endurance, Endurance Training, Exercises, Get In Shape, Getting Back In Shape, Getting In Shape, Hours Of Sleep, Lame, Muscle Knots, Precious Commodity, Priority, Shape, Sleep, Weight Training, Weights, Workout, Workouts
