this morning was horrible. I felt just plain ol weak. I have had to make the jump permantly to the hammer strength machines. I dont' feel safe with the amount of weight I am starting to push. So Im having to get use to the isolation that the hammer strength machines provide, and I feel like Ive taken a giant step back. So heres what the program looked like this am. By the way, I was up at 5:15... it gave me a lot more time this morning. oddly enough.
Bench warmup 1x8 with bar, 1x90flat bench
1 x 135
1 x 180
hammer strength 3 x 180 these were rough, fatigued out the last set on 6
incline hammer strength
4 x 135
like I said, i feel like Ive taken a step back because I feel like Im using different parts of muscle. Is this right??
DB flys1 x 35
1 x 40
1 x 45
not too bad, felt stronger as the morning went on
standing curls
felt like a little sissy here
1x 12 with 50
1 x 10 with 60 (struggled on this one, so I went back to 50)
1 x 8 with 50
1 x 6 with 40 (crotch stain stole my bar)
1 x 6 with 70 everyone was working biceps today, so I figured Id give it a try. hard but not too bad
hammer curls
1 x 8 with 30
1 x 6 with 35
1 x 6 with 40
I was so glad to get out of the gym this morning. I had plenty of time and everything, I didn't feel rushed at all, but I felt soft, couldn't get motivated. I hope Im not already losing motivation. Any comments welcome.
2 comments:
Don't stress over it too much. The hammer machines will target the major muscles in the bench. What you'll miss are the helper muscles that stabilize the bar on free weights. Make the difference by doing some different execises with free weights. Heavy db bench, bench press in a squat rack with safety bars, weighted dips..... Get creative. You don't have to do just bech press to get good at bench press.
There's pretty much never a direct weight crossover from freeweights to HS. Even though you're using plates instead of, say, a weight stack, you're pushing 'em around an axis with a lever. So instead of force against gravity in a practically straight line, you're always putting force into a torque equation. So depending (among other things) on where you hold the grips you can make the weight harder or easier to move by shortening or lengthening the moment-arm respectively. And because the force you're actually having to produce gets run through a torque equation, the "weight" you have on the machine isn't very meaningful; it'll never be the same as the weight you'd push in a straight line. Also you're directing force in a kind of circle around the axle, so it takes some slightly different muscles to do that generally. Just don't think about the weight.
If some skinny chick comes in after you, though, and piles more weight on than you did, then you can feel like a sissy.
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