Two days off and I was eager to get back in the gym. External obligations and scheduling issues, coupled with lack of desire, kept me from the gym for longer than I like. I missed two days’ worth of exercise, but I did go hard for the sessions before, and my body could use the recovery, so I didn’t fret too much about it.

I was eager to get in today and hit shoulders with some arms, and I leapt to it. I warmed up with dumbbell shrugs with 45s, then jumped right to going heavy. I wanted to see if I could hold 90s and keep good form on my shrugs – my shoulders are strong enough to lift the weights, my grip strength is my current weak spot. Gotta buy some straps. My hands didn’t give out, and I was able to do three sets of eight reps each with the 90 pound bad boys. I barely made it on the last set, the dumbbells were straining to fall from my fingers, but I cranked through. I did a flush set with 60s for 15 reps to end shrugs, then I went to barbell raises.

Since my grip strength was pretty shot, I stuck to the Olympic barbell only for the shrugs and did five sets of ten reps each. My medial delts were starting to scream pretty loudly, and I started to sense some binding in the shoulders, so I made sure to not push it too hard. I finished up with three sets of barbell curls, holding my upper arms stiff and steady, and focusing on contracting the biceps hard, keeping constant tension on them. Then I did some rope triceps pressdowns for three sets and wrapped the workout with some medball twists and a soak. A good session.

I didn’t want to go to complete failure and exhaustion today, because I’m doing my first Zumba class tomorrow, and I hear it’s going to kick my butt. That’s also why I decided not to train legs today, gotta save something for tomorrow.

Weight: 219.2

Shoulders & Arms

Dumbbell shrugs – 45 x 15, 90 x 8/8/8, 60 x 15
Barbell raise – 45 x 10/10/10/10/10
Barbell curl – 45 x 8/10/7
Rope tri pressdown – 60 x 10/8/6
Medball twists, 16# – 25/25
Soak – 10m
3735 + 2250 + 1125 + 1440 + 800 = 9350 pounds moved