Frozen Berry Protein Shake

Here's a simple protein shake I've been making lately as a treat after a hard home-gym workout.

In a blender, add:

• 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries (available in frozen food section of the supermarket)
• 2 scoops protein powder
• 1 teaspoon honey
• lowfat milk to make a total of 2 cups of stuff in the blender (about 1 1/2 cups)

Blend until smooth. Drink.

I highly recommend using a protein blend(with casein) such as Met-Rx Protein Plus instead of a pure whey protein. This has nothing to do with the nutritional benefits of casein vs. whey - its simply that casein (but not whey) adds body to the shake, making it much more thick and smooth. Personally I 've also found that the Met-Rx protein is far less likely to give me gas than whey.

High Rep Bench, Supersets, Thick Bars

Whenever I am able to report an "interesting" workout its almost always because I trained with Matt. Last night's workout added to the legacy...

Matt showed up at my house for the home-gym training effect at 6:30. We were set for an "upper body" workout. After some warmups we decided to start with the Good Old Bench Press, seeing how many reps we could get with a "measly" 135 lbs. Frank has written about his experience with this last month. It went like this:

105 x 8 (warmup)
135 x 18, 10, 7

Man these were hard! The pump even after just the first set was incredible. The second two practically wiped us out - - but not quite. We had a lot of work left.

The next surprise was dumbbell rows with my home-made thick-handled dumbbell. This is a very unique experience - the pain in the hands and forearms towards the end of the set feels like nothing else. We managed something like:

60 x 8 (warmup)
70 x 12, 10, 8

Still more to go. My thought was to superset standing dumbbell presses with pronated chins, but after I finished my first set of presses Matt announced he wanted to work in wide grip upright rows somehow. No problem, I thought - lets emulate the great Dave Draper and do a tri-set of presses, chins, and upright rows. We quickly setup the bar for the rows and continued:

Presses: 35 x 10, 7
Chins: 10 , 8
Upright Rows: 65 x 10 , 8

Matt kept yelling at me not to rest between the sets, so by the time I finished the upright rows I was gasping for air, needing 3 breaths between reps! We managed two cycles of these, trying to save a little gas to bring my thick-handled barbells out of retirement, which I had acquired several years ago when I was in my "Dinosaur Training" phase.

We started with the 2 1/2 " bar. This is made from hollow steel tube, so it only weighs about 30 lbs. We loaded it up for a total of about 60 lbs, not being sure how bad the "thick handle" effect would be. It was pretty bad. With the 2 1/2 " grip its very hard to hold on to the bar, and your "groove" is thrown way off. We each managed "only" a set of 10 and a set of 8. Matt remarked that this was "barbaric". I noticed I had a pump in my wrists from this bar!

Still not done. We did a couple of sets of incline skull crushers for some tricep work and a little break from the forearm torture. Then I brought out my home-made 2 " thick barbell, which is perfect for reverse curls. This we loaded up to 50 lbs and did a single set of 10. Matt kept saying "ouch" with each rep, so we finally decided to call it quits.

First Workout of 2007

My New Year's Day workout was Legs/Chest. I hit the gym late morning, and it was surprisingly busy, considering I went to the "casual" gym, and not the "hardcore" one. Must be the "New Year's Resolution" folks that show up for the first 3-weeks of the year.

It's good that Chest is the second part of my workout, because being a Monday, every single bench was occupied when I got there. I headed over to the squat racks, which were empty of course. I usually warm up with front-squats of just the bar for about a dozen reps. Then I usually do a couple warm-ups of 135 before moving on to my working set:

Squats - 190 x 21
Calf Raises - 180 x 19
Leg Curls - 80 x 12

I have also been doing a lot of stretching for legs. After training legs, I usually do about 10-minutes of stretching before moving on to the upper-body portion of the workout. After my stretching, a couple benches were finally available.

Bench Press - 185 x 12
Incline Smith - 185 x 10

My weights on bench are definitely down when following a leg workout, as compared to starting fresh. But endurance is one of the things that this routine will help to build.

Streamlining Frank's 20-rep Squat Program

I am forging ahead with my 20-rep squat program. After cycling through my original training plan, I have tweaked the upper-body portion of the program. I am splitting upper-body more, so I only have to bang out one upper-bodypart after each brutal leg session. This way I don't have to split my focus as much when I am already pretty exhausted. It also gives a little more individual attention to each part. The schedule now looks like this:

Monday
20-rep Squats
Calf Raises
Leg Curls
Bench Press
Incline Smith Machine Press

Wednesday
20-rep Squats
Calf Raises
Leg Curls
Seated Rows
Lat Pulldowns

Friday
20-rep Squats
Calf Raises
Leg Curls
Standing Press
Side Laterals
Shrugs

Saturday
Seated Alternate Dumbell Curls
Standing Barbell Curls
Dumbell Kickbacks
Overhead Rope Extensions

.......yes, I have a separate fun arm day now!

As you can imagine, squatting 3 times a week, has my legs sore pretty much all the time. This amount of frequency requires a break from time to time. My plan is to have scheduled lower-body breaks at 6-week intervals. After 6-weeks, I will take 1-week off from lower-body training, and do only the upper-body portion of the routine for that week before entering another 6-week cycle. I also think its good to take a week off from all training once a year.