I’m now two complete rotations in and certainly feeling the workload. Yesterday was my fourth official rest day, and as per last week’s post arms day rest day, I used it was an active rest day. However, my body is definitely feeling the volume so I literally just did a 20min ab circuit.

The day before was my second run at the dips, curls and shoulders. I supersetted the weighted dips with standing calf raises (using the weighted belt and weight already on my hips from the dips) on a flat disc edge and supersetted the incline curls with seated calf raises (DBs on the knees) also on a disc edge. I kept the same weight for both as last time as the dips were really tough the time before. I had planned to up the biceps curls weight, but someone else had the DBs I needed so I stuck to the same as last time…I’m thankful I did, it was really hard. Whether that was the supersetting, or just general fatigue I don’t know, regardless, a tough, tough session.

As always, after the dips and curls came the shoulder raises. I always had weaker shoulders during my time in the Marines; more so as I concentrated on running and any resistance training I did was simply pull-ups and press-ups – little specific shoulder work. However, in recent years I’ve made a big effort to add some size and shape to my delts, hence this part of the session I love to hate! Love as I know how good these exercises are, hate, as they really are excruciating! I had the awesome Kate Braithwaite training me for this session (as much as I can push myself and train hard alone, there is still a little part of you that can be pushed harder and a top trainer like Kate always gets a little more out of me) and she pushed me through 3 sets of 15 reps then a final set of 12, 8, 5/6 respectively of rest/pause. Horrible… (the exercise, not Kate!)

So, the session looked like:

1. Supersets of 10sets 10reps of weighted dips & standing calf raises. 1mins rest between dips (calves part of rest time)
2. Supersets 10sets 10reps of incline Db curls & seated calf raises. 1mins rest between curls (calves part of rest time)
3. Prone bench reverse flyes 3 sets 15 reps, 1 set of 2x rest/pause
4. Inline Lateral raises 3 sets 15 reps, 1 set of 2x rest/pause

Yesterday’s active rest ab session was:

1. Trisets (3 sets):
   1. A1. TRX rollout x 10
   2. A2. Olympic bar rotations x 10 (each side)
   3. A3. Olympic bar side bends x 10 (each side)
2. Trisets (3 sets)
   1. B1. TRX rollouts x 10 (steeper than above)
   2. B2. Dragon lowers x 5
   3. B3. Wheel rollouts x 5
3. 1 set of heavy cable curls x 10 to finish