This blog is dedicated to Zhdanko, my friend in Russia who requested more video. So with that in mind, I decided to fill this week's blog with video. Enjoy!

David Bradford Comes to Town!
On Friday of last week my brother-in-law to be, David Bradford, ventured up from Southern California for the weekend and we got in two awesome workouts. David is looking to enter is first ever competition next season and I feel he will hit the stage looking really good. Since he started hitting the gym back in January he has improved tremendously. He has not only improved his physique and strength, but also his confidence level within his workouts. Check out the video below where you will see the difference from the first clip shot back in April to the second clip which was shot last Friday. Huge difference! I am very proud of him.

Doin Work! Upper Body Work 9/3/10
I usually train alone, but lately I been fortunate enough to have had some great workouts with friends and family and it’s always nice to have someone there to motivate you. Things went really nice with Friday’s workout as David and I put in some good work. David started out with three sets of incline presses on the Smith machine and he pressed 235lbs for about 4-5 reps with each set.

Although the eccentric portion of the rep was a little shallow, he still worked pretty damn hard. After the workout we went through the video footage and he recognized and understood he can go a tad bit lower with the movement and he is willing to make the necessary adjustments to make sure his reps are improved. The refreshing part about David is that he is very open minded to learn proper form and to continually improve with each workout. He does not let his ego dictate his workouts and that is refreshing to see.

I avoided the Smith machine due to my shoulder problems, so I went ahead with incline dumbbell press. I worked in 1 good set with 90 lbs. for 5 reps and I finished up with a combination of a static hold and negative. Last week I did the same weight and I managed to barely get 5 reps and I was not able to finish off with a negative. This week I pushed up 5 reps plus a static hold and a negative, so it was cool to see some progress.  



Our next movement was some good old fashioned one arm rows. In the previous weeks I had talked to David on the phone about moving up in weight with this movement. He was a little hesitant, but I was convinced he could move up because in his previous workouts he was hitting 100lbs for 8 reps.  He decided to jump up to 110lbs in his next workout and he surely got in some nice reps.  With that in mind, I decided to be a little sneaky. In my gym, my dumbbells only go up to 100lbs, so in order to lift heavier I have to attach an ankle weight to my wrist. The ankle weight I have is 10 lbs and David was unaware of this. I went ahead and strapped it to David’s wrist, but I also slipped a 5 lb weight to the strap of the ankle weight. He had no idea he was actually about to do 115 lbs. and after a nice set for 9 reps…you could say he was very happy!



For me, I started with 115 lbs for one set and then I increased on my 2nd and final set to 120lbs and got in some slow and controlled reps with a negative to finish off the set. Next week I doubt I will do this exercise because without someone to help me strap up the ankle weights I just don’t get enough out of the movement with only 100lbs. I will more than likely switch up to bent rows instead.



We then moved on to perform some moto rows and if you have never tried these out before I highly recommend it! When I woke up on Saturday morning I felt like my lats were going to rip right off of the bone! They were torched!


The rest of the workout was killer and we definitely shot some great video clips of the entire workout. We decided to edit a fun video from the workout and here is the final product. Enjoy!


Doin Work Pt 2! Lower Body 9/05/10
On Sunday morning we entered the dungeon for a hard leg workout. David was up for some Smith machine squats and I was getting in my deadlifts. David got under the bar with 295 lbs and he fell just a little short of his previous best of 4 reps, but he busted out 3 good reps. His second set was for another 3 reps and we decided to drop the weight on his 3rd and final set to 275 lbs and he seemed to hit a better groove and nailed 4 reps.


Sunday was deadlift day for me and I wasn’t too sure how I was going to respond since I am not really a morning lifter. To my surprise the bar seemed to be moving quite well for me and I improved my personal record to 440lbs.


David finished up with leg curls, toe press and abs and I got in some hack squats, leg curls, toe press and abs. Great fun!

I really enjoyed training with David and I look forward to watching his journey to the stage next year!

My Recovery Issues & Finding the Right Solution for Me
After last weekend’s trashing with David I have noticed a bit of a drop off in performance and recovery this past week. My latest upper body workout I couldn’t handle the 90’s on the incline dumbbell press due to severe pain, so I had to drop down to 80’s. Doing negative reps was also out of the question. I had to leave out any back movements because of a slight strain in my left lat that I suffered  from the 440 lb deadlift I nailed last Sunday morning. I usually have no problems with behind the neck presses, but it was just not happening during this past upper body workout. I decided to try standing military presses instead and 95 lbs was all I could handle without any pain. Triceps press downs and barbell curls were also painful to execute, but I was not going to let that workout get me frustrated. I really only have two choices…the first would be to let myself get frustrated and get down on myself in which I did a while back. The second choice would be to accept my reality and ask myself some very important questions to help me improve my recovery and performance. The wrong answer in my opinion is to have that all too familiar mentality…just work through the pain! That mentality almost always ends up in a bad place. Pain is your body’s signal to warn you something is not right and to ignore that response and work through it is not very smart in my opinion. This is how many injuries occur. If I want to continue with my career than I need to be smart about the situation. So I have chosen to ask myself the important questions regarding my recovery abilities and to answer them with common sense and also by using my experience I have accumulated over the years to ensure I keep moving forward safely. 

First question…why did my recovery suffer this week?  Since incorporating HIT (high intensity training) back into my training two weeks ago, it has become very clear to me this past week that I do not have the same recovery abilities I have had in the past. In the past, I rarely have had any problems recovering from my workouts except on some occasions. Even though my current volume is really low (2-3 days per week and 1-2 sets per body part) the intensity I am using is really high.  Also, my age may also be playing a small part in my recovery abilities. I have had plenty of sleep, food and days off in between my workouts, so with all these factors accounted for I can only rationalize that the intensity level in which I have sustained over the past couple off weeks must be the culprit.

Second question…what’s a possible solution to allow myself to train with HIT and to fully recover from those workouts? I know many reading this will probably think to just get rid of that training style, but I have used training like that for the majority of my career and it has yielded very nice results for me and I really do not want to put it on the shelf just yet.  I just need to adjust the way I incorporate it into my training. After really thinking hard about it…it only makes sense that attempting to train with super high intensity for more than two weeks in a row is no longer feasible for me. Looking back at the last two weeks in the gym everything was going really well. I improved in stamina and strength during those two weeks, but this week has been a true indicator that my body is not recovering from back to back weeks of HIT. I am suffering with a lot of pain in my joints and I have also acquired some muscle strains. So, looking at my data from the previous three weeks (including this week)... my solution is to rotate blocks of HIT with deloads. I will perform HIT for two weeks and then I will train with a one week deload. The deload week I will cut back on the amount of weight being used by at least 25% - 50% and also the intensity…meaning no positive failure, negatives or static holds. I feel the deload week will allow me to fully recover before killing myself again. Once the deload week is complete I will more than likely be ready for another two week punishment. If not, I may need an extra week  to fully recover to allow myself to blast away again.  I will see in the next couple of weeks if this approach proves to work for me.  If it does not... well... I can say I will have then collected more data to help me continue to analyze and find a better solution for my recovery issues. It ends up being a win-win situation instead of just taking that crazy ego approach and telling myself… no pain, no gain! If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to leave me a comment or drop me an email. I am always open to ideas to help me improve.

Looking Ahead!
I am really looking forward to October because I will be training with INBF Champ/Team 3DMJ Coach Eric Helms. We are planning on getting in at least 1-2 workouts together per week leading up to the beginning of our run to the 2011 contest season. Those workouts are going to be intense and I will be sure to capture it on film. Look for those videos next month!

INBF Champ/Team 3DMJ Coach Eric Helms

Next season is approaching fast and I am starting to get really motivated for another great year. As I take my journey to the stage in 2011, I will have my teammates to share it with and also the many friends who will be taking their journey to the stage as well. It is going to be a blast!

Until my next blog, keep training hard and naturally!