So I began the day thinking I was going to do a leg workout but had to switch it up when I felt my hamstring was still tender from my last leg workout. Sometimes it’s just better to listen to your body and allow a muscle group to recover rather than risking injury and setting you back in your fitness goals. As with every workout, I charged up my iPod and loaded it with some new tunes to get me in the zone while I warm up.
Instead of doing legs I decided to move forward a day in my typical workout circuit and do chest. I typically don’t have a set routine and go with what hits me at the moment. Today I decided to go in a different direction than my typical chest workout. Today’s workout is as follows:
1. Incline dumbbell bench and medicine ball push ups
2. Wide and close push ups
3. Hammer Stregth Iso Wide Chest with resistance bands
For the first two groupings of exercises I decided to break out my tabata timer to pick up the intensity a little bit. They basically involved exerting maximum effort for 20 seconds followed by a 10 second rest. You do this for 8 cycles to equal 1 tabata set. I do 1 tabata for each grouping. Initially it doesn’t sound like a lot but wait until you try it and see what you think afterwards.
The first exercises I did were the Incline Dumbbell Bench and Medicine Ball Push Ups. I took a moderately heavy weight to start for the incline dumbbell bench (bad idea, Lol) and proceeded how you would normally perform this exercise. Nothing fancy, just a controlled motion where I got full contraction and stretch on each rep. For the medicine ball push-ups I positioned my right hand on the medicine ball and the left hand on the floor. To perform this exercise you begin as a normal push-up but then push yourself into the air and to the opposite side of the medicine ball so that you land with your left hand on the ball and right hand on the floor. The first round of each seemed relatively easy but then fatigue quickly caught up. I found myself struggling with the weight and continued to drop the weight on the dumbbells to make sure that I kept working through the entire 20 second work set. I also wasn’t able to launch myself in the air towards the end so I placed both hands on the ball and finished my 20 seconds up.
The second exercises seemed like maybe they would be easier since they are simply two different bodyweight push-ups. Wrong again! To perform these exercises you grab two aerobic steps and place them a little wider than shoulder width. You begin with a wide push-up and once again propel your body in the air and land with your arms about shoulder width apart and tight to your body. You then push yourself back up and into the air so that both hands land back on top of the aerobic steps. Time to hit the tabata time and work. Now I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit I eventually had to go to what is typically considered a girly push-up with my knees on the ground to even be able to finish up this circuit. Believe me I was happy to know that I was done with exercises 1 & 2.
Now at this point I had a couple other exercise groupings in mind but the fact that my chest and arms are already like jello I’m going to finish up with a more traditional exercise that my friend decided to share with me. We head over to the Hammer Strength Iso Wide Chest machine and are going to add some resistance bands with light weight. Now I do these a lot and typically crank out full sets with 500-550 lbs on this exercise so I’m pretty confident I’m gonna kill it on these. And then reality set in. I was hoping to perform 10 reps each set before hitting failure but to be honest I only hit between 5-7.
I was able to finish this chest workout in less than 20 minutes and completely fatigue my muscles and get just as great a pump as I do with my more traditional chest workouts. My goal was to create some muscle confusion to help shock my muscles to stimulate new muscle growth and I’m pretty sure I was able to accomplish just that. So if you’re bored with your normal chest routine give this one a try and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.
You can find me at:
www.facebook.com/bobby.ashhurst.2
bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/NutriFitBobby/
http://twitter.com/#!/bobby_ashhurst
Contest Prep Help
www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/The-JamCore-Physique-Factory/218571681502085
http://twitter.com/#!/JamCorePF
Subscribe to RxMuscle on Youtube
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|||
