Gotta Lift Big To Get Big

HIIT Workout

2013-10-22T10:39:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone so for the past couple months or so I have been running a new HIIT cardio program to try to slim up and lose some fat. So far I have lost about 30 lbs and have seen significant differences in my body fat! My work out is only about 25-30 minutes including stretching before hand so it is something that you could do if you are short on time.
What I do is 5 exercises for a minute each with 5 seconds of rest inbetween for 3 sets. My first 4 exercises are always the same but the last one I usually switch it up from day to day depending on what area of my body I will be working on that day. So for leg day I'll do a minute of deep body weight squats, chest day I'll do a couple different variations of pushups, for the other days I'll do some ab workouts.

So my workout typically looks like this.

Jumprope-1 minute
5 second rest
High knees-1 minute
5 second rest
Butt kicks-1 minute
5 second rest
Leaps and bounds-1 minute
5 second rest
Exercise depends on the day-1 minute
Repeat 3 times for a workout lasting only about 17 minutes.
Trust me this will have you sweating in no time and like all HIIT circuits you continue to burn fat after the workout is done, this I believe is the main reason I have been able to lose close to 30 lbs in the last couple months.

Thursday=Back Day

2013-07-11T13:01:00.003-07:00

Hey everyone it is time for Thursday's workout! Thursday is back day and this one is rough! You should feel this workout for a day or two after. To begin we start on standing rows for 4 sets of 10. We do a warm-up with 90 lbs and then we jump to 135 for one set then we jump to 165 lbs. for 2 sets.

In between sets we do dead lifts, so both of us are generally on an exercise so we don't rest much. For dead lifts we usually do 4 sets of 5 at 185 lbs. It's not much weight but we emphasize on form and go slow.

From dead lifts we move to lat pull downs for 4 sets of 8 at 150 lbs. On this lift we try to lean back slightly and try not to rock so we isolate our lats and don't cheat ourselves by rocking. We then go to assisted pull ups for 4 sets of 5 at 40 lbs. Eventually we will be doing these with no assistance and then added weight.

Our last lift for the day is by far the worst one; you will definitely feel this one the next day! We finish with one arm dumbbell rows with heavy weight for 5 sets of 10 on each side. We just jumped in weight so for the next couple weeks we will be doing 100 lbs.

Down below I have posted a sample of our regular back day. This is what we will be doing for the next 3 weeks then we will add more weight to each lift.

Exercise	Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5
Standing Row	90 lbs x 10	135 lbs x 10	165 lbs x 10	165 lbs x 10
Dead Lift	135 lbs x 5	185 lbs x 5	185 lbs x 5	185 lbs x 5	185 lbs x 5
Lat Pull downs	150 lbs x 8	150 lbs x 8	150 lbs x 8	150 lbs x 8
Pull-ups	-40 lbs x 5	-40 lbs x 5	-40 lbs x 5	-40 lbs x 5
One arm rows	100 lbs x 10	100 lbs x 10	100 lbs x 10	100 lbs x 10	100 lbs x 10

Wednesday=Curls 4 Girls

2013-05-21T11:45:00.001-07:00

     It's Tuesday and guess what that means? It is time for me to post another one of our workouts. This time I will be posting our Arm routine. I have recently seen some pretty good gains in my arm size and strength while doing this workout. I hope that I can keep the progress going and get those big arms every guy wants and every girl drools over.
     So to begin we start with straight barbell curls with a full size Olympic bar. We start with a warm-up of a set of 10 at 65 Lbs. We then move up to 85 Lbs and do 4 sets of 10 at the same weight. On this lift we are concentrating on using the bicep muscles and really clenching them at the top of our motion.
     Next we move over to straight bar tricep push downs on the cable machine. We once again do a warm-up of 70 Lbs then jump to our working weight. For our working weight we jump to 100 Lbs and do 4 sets of 10. Once again we really try to get a good squeeze with the tricep at full arm extension.
    The next on our list is skull crushers. For this we go to the flat bench and use a dumbbell. By now our triceps are warm and starting to feel it a little so we don't need a warm-up. We go straight to 90 Lbs for 4 sets of 10. This lift kills your arms but that's what we want right no pain no gain.
     The next lift is Dumbbell hammer curls. On this lift we have been doing 4 sets of 10 at 55 Lbs. Once again really focusing on clenching our biceps to really isolate them and make them grow.
     To finish we end with preacher curls on the preacher machine instead of the free weights. We do this because we really tend to feel it more so in just the biceps and not any of our other muscles. For this lift we do 3-4 sets of 10 at 70 Lbs.
   And that does it for our 3rd work out of the week and by the time we finish our arms are throbbing and sore.
Remember Curls are for the girls!

Tuesday= can't lift arms day

2013-05-20T04:00:00.001-07:00

     Hey everyone I am back for day two's exercise! For Tuesday our second day we do shoulders and after this work out it is almost guaranteed you won't be able to lift your arms above your head.
     We start out with standing barbell military press for 1-2 sets of 10 at 65 Lbs for a warm-up. We jump to 115 Lbs for 4 sets of 8-12 reps. We try to shoot for that 12th rep each set. From Standing military we go to standing barbell upright rows. With this lift we have the bar at waist level to start then we raise the bar to our shoulders keeping our palms facing us and the bar as close to our body as we can. We do this lift for 3 sets of 8-12 reps currently at 115 Lbs.
     Our next lift is the standard barbell shrugs. We generally do 4 sets of 10 at 225 Lbs. For these we try to go slow and really isolate the traps.
     The next lift for the day is rear lat pull downs. For this exercise we do the standard lat pull down but bring the bar behind the head instead of to the chest. This motion really gets the traps and the lats. For this exercise we do 4 sets of 12 at 135 Lbs. By that 4th set it is usually quite hard to get all 12 but that's what we want.
     The lift we move to next is dumbbell upright rows. This motion is the exact same as the barbell upright rows but you use a set of dumbbells to complete the motion instead. On this lift we go for 3-4 sets of 8-10 reps at 65 Lbs depending on time constraints. After this we jump to the dumbbell delt fly for 3 sets of 8-10 reps at 35 Lbs.
     For the last lift on our shoulder day, to really ensure we aren't able to lift our arms, we do the delt fly machine for 3 sets of 10 reps at 115 Lbs.
     This is one heck of a workout and really gets your shoulders feeling it, if you don't believe me just give it a shot for yourself. Also remember that the weights listed are our current weights and that we continually move up each week trying to get stronger and bigger.
     One more thing is to check out Mike O'hearn's Power Bodybuilding workout which our workout is based upon. We took his workout from Bodybuilding.com and added a few extra lifts we thought we could use. So by no means did we completely come up with this workout by ourselves. I've got to give credit where credit is due. Thanks for reading this post and look for our Wednesday back workout to come soon.

Monday=Chest Day

2013-05-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

I’m back!! After a yearlong hiatus I am back to blogging about mine and my dad’s workouts and the progress we have seen and hopefully will see in the future. So to catch everyone up my dad and I go to the gym every morning from 5-6 A.M. We have been doing this for almost 3 years now. I took a 6 month break or so because of my work schedule but now I am back at it.

So let me start back by giving you a brief explanation of our workouts and the amount of weight we are currently at. This is going to be a 5 part post and I will post about each day and workout on a different day. So For Monday’s we do chest and that’s it, each day we focus on one body group and just kill it. We try to push that one muscle group so much in that one day that we need a week to recover. So on our chest day we start with flat bench. We warm up with 1-2 sets of about 10 reps at 155 lbs. After that we jump to 185 for a set of 5. We then jump to 225 for a set of 5, and then we jump again. This week we are on 4 sets of 5 at 265 lbs. After flat bench we go straight to incline press. We do one set at 135 lbs for kind of a warm up and to get used to the motion. Then we jump to our working weight and this week we were at 205 lbs. We do 5 sets of 2 at our working weight and call it good. After our chest is feeling it from flat and incline bench we move to Dumbbell Incline Fly’s. We generally don’t do a warm up because by now we are good and warm and starting to get a little sore. For this exercise we do 3-4 sets of 10 at 60lbs this week. For these we really try to focus on form so that we work out the right muscles and we protect our shoulders from carrying too much of the pressure. We finish our chest work out with cable crossovers. We usually hit these last and do 3-4 sets of 10 and since we haven’t done these in a while we are at 70 lbs per arm.

So that is generally our Monday chest work out. If any of you would like print outs of any of the work outs, we get them from Bodybuilding.com. The work out is Mike O’hearn’s Power Body Building, we have just made a few variations and modifications to make it our own. I’ll be back tomorrow for our Tuesday Shoulder work out.

Have a great day everyone and remember ‘You Gotta Lift Big to Get Big!’

3 month gains

2012-01-27T08:11:00.001-08:00

So in the last 3 months my chest has gained 3 inches overall and my upper arms have gained half an inch! Those are some pretty decent gains if you ask me. Now I just need to lose 3 or 4 inches on my gut and I'll be in great shape for the honeymoon!

Is it time to change the goal?

2012-01-12T09:24:00.001-08:00

Me and my dad have been working out for the past 2 years with the goal to be power lifters but I am going to be engaged soon and I am wondering whether it is time to change the goal or not. I have been thinking of changing our goals to get ripped. It would especially be nice to be sexy on the honeymoon! I'll keep the blog posted on what my final choice will be.

Sick

2011-12-28T07:56:00.001-08:00

So I went snowboarding last Wednesday night and ended up getting a cold on Thursday. Let me just say this cold is kicking my butt! I worked out Friday, Monday, and today (Wednesday) and I am as weak as a kitten! I have been taking it kinda easy and not trying to kill myself. On the bench I only did 5 sets of 5 at 225 lbs instead of my usual 275 lbs. The 225 was quite easy but I just didn't want to kill myself and over do it while being sick. I am hoping to get over it real soon so I can go back to training at full strength again!

Pre-workout supplements

2011-12-06T07:33:00.001-08:00

So recently I order some new pre-workout sups on SupplementWarehouse.com. I bought MusclePharm's Assault and a new one called anaburst. I had done some reading up on Assault and the reviews were pretty good but everyone kept saying how powerful it was and to only do a half a scoop. When I first got it I tried the half scoop and it did nothing for me! I then tried the new Anaburst stuff and it is supposed to be super concentrate and it comes with a little baby scoop. I tried the little baby scoop and once again nothing! I then got the genius idea to try a full scoop of Assault and a little baby scoop of the Anaburst together and together they make a great team! They wake me up and get me pumped. This combo is one of the best pre-workouts I have tried and since they are both a blue raspberry flavor they mix quite well. This combination seems to work for me as good if not better as any other pre-workout sup I have tried so far and believe me I have tried a lot!
As far as I am concerned these are great products (when combined). I have seen no real adverse affects and would recommend the duo to anyone looking for a good pre-workout that will get you the pumps you are looking for and gives you energy.

Also the only place to buy supplements is at SupplementWarehouse.com the prices are cheap plus all the freebies you just can't beat them! They are the only place I will ever buy sups from simply for the low prices, fast shipping, and the freebies!

Power Bodybuilding

2011-11-23T08:02:00.001-08:00

This week we have started a new workout called power bodybuilding! We found this on Bodybuilding.com. It is a beast of a workout that consists of high weight, low reps with high sets. Instead of doing a couple of sets with moderately high weight you go 5 sets of 5 reps at the highest weight you can get all the reps out. It is exactly what this blog is about lifting big to get big! So far I am loving this new workout. It is a beast and I can definitely tell I am going to see some good gains with this program.
Today we did the chest workout. On bench I did one set of 5 at 225 lbs then I jumped to 275 lbs and did 4 sets of 5 reps. After bench we go over to incline press and do 5 sets of 5. After incline press we moved over to incline dumbbell flies with 65 lbs for 3 sets of 10. By the end of this your chest is feeling it! We finished our workout with a set of hammer curls. What a great workout, I am hoping that if I keep at it I'll be up to ab 400 lb bench press by June of next year!

This Tuesday

2011-11-15T05:30:00.001-08:00

This Tuesday was different than most. This Tuesday I had some crazy amount of motivation to go harder than before. This Tuesday I didn't want to leave the gym feeling like I had an ok workout. This Tuesday I wanted to leave the gym feeling like I just killed it, I wanted everyone in that gym to know I wasn't there to play around. This Tuesday I could lift the world. This Tuesday I was an animal, better yet a beast!
This Tuesday is going to be the last this Tuesday, from now on it is going to be everyday. Every morning I go to that gym I am going to go in there like a beast. I am going to tear that gym apart. I am going to show every single person that walks into that gym that I am not there to mess around. I am going to leave that gym feeling like I gave it my all.

This is my promise to myself.

I will keep it.

Nicknames

2011-11-10T05:49:00.001-08:00

So every gym you go to there are those guys that you give nicknames, like there's always a roider, or there's always those girls that come to get checked out and don't really work out, they just strut around trying to get guys to look at them. Well my gym is no exception we've got both of those and more so I thought I would tell everyone about the guys we see every morning and the nicknames me and my dad gave them. So we'll start of with the quarter bench boys, every gym has some form of these guys. They put on a good amount of weight on the bench and only bring the weight down a quarter of the way and go back up hence the name quarter bench. We've got three guys like that at our gym, the funny part about it is they think they are so strong. Next we've got smelly, once again his name gives it up, this dude stinks of BO! It could be Monday morning and this guy still smells like he hasn't bathed in 5 days and hasn't changed or washed his clothes. This guys stench takes over the weight room when he is there. It makes it difficult to lift near him cuz he just smells so bad. We've got saddle bag lady who is one of the most annoying people to ever step inside the weight room. We call her saddle bags because she wears spandex pants and shouldn't! She takes over the weight room and doesn't actually lift any weight she just needs a place to do her ball exercises. What's worse is she has a group of followers so there's always at least 3 or 4 people around her all the time.
So moving on we now go to sponge Bob. Thus guy is probably 65 to 70 years old and carries 2 sponges with him all the time. He puts them in between the handles of the different machines and his hands. He also likes to walk around hitting on all the older ladies at the gym! There's also crocodile dundy he where's the exact same hat that crocodile dundy wore while working out, ridiculous, I know! Last but not least we've got jeans who is also one of the quarter bench guys, except he will wear jeans to the gym and squat in them! I can't even squat in jeans with out any added weight let alone with weight. He only goes down a quarter of the way though so I guess the jeans thing doesn't really matter too much.

Well that is just about all the weirdos we've got at our gym, so if you ever come to where we work out at 5 AM you'll understand why we call these people by there nicknames!

Beast mode!

2011-11-03T06:10:00.001-07:00

Do you ever have those days at the gym where you just get in the zone and feel like you can lift anything you load? That's what I call beast mode! That's what I had today. I felt so good, I felt I could of put up 500 lbs on the bench. Haha ok maybe not that crazy but for our bench today we warmed up with a plate (135) for 10 reps, we jumped to 2 plates (225) for 5 reps, then to 255 for 5 reps, we were gonna finish on 275 lbs for 5 reps but like I was saying I was in beast mode today! So after my last set of 275 I decided to jump again and put on 315 lbs. I threw up 2 reps like it was only 225 lbs, I should have done more but called it quits after 2 reps. The rest of our workout was way good I was putting up high weights with ease on every lift we did. I was repping 225 on incline bench when we never had really gone that high before. All in all today was a great day at the gym! You gotta love these beast mode days, feeling like the hulk!

Curls are for the girls

2011-10-31T05:43:00.001-07:00

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are generally our "upper body" days. On those days we work out chest and biceps out. I put upper body in quotations because on our "leg" day we also do shoulders and our back so its technically not our entire upper body. So anyways to get on to our workout. On "upper body" days we start out with flat bench and do a warm up of 10 reps at 135 lbs we then jump to 225 and do a set of 5, next is 255x5, then last we do 275x5. We then move straight to incline bench press and do the same sets just less weight. Directly after we jump right over to the barbell military press and we do 2 sets of 10. By then our chest and triceps are usually feeling really good! By really good I mean they are killing us haha. We push on and go over to the chest ISO machines. We do 2 sets each on the incline ISO, the decline ISO and the wide grip ISO. Our chest is killing by then and feels like if we do another set it might just explode! We feel like our triceps get a pretty decent workout even though we never isolate them because every chest workout we do uses our triceps and they always get a good burn going.

Next after we murder our chest we go over to the dumbbells to do multiple variations of curls. I have been putting a lot of emphasis on my biceps foe the past month or so because I really want to see some noticeable growth out of them. They have grown quite a bit recently to 17 inches but they still just don't look that big on me because I am a big guy to begin with. Hence the reason for the big time emphasis on that part of my body, I want to wear shirts and have my biceps fighting to bust out at all times! Haha.

Tomorrow we will do our legs and back and lets hope we kill it like we did today!

Remember Curls are for the girls!

345 lb Bench

2011-10-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

This is me benching 345 lbs this summer. My new goal is to get to 400 lbs by next summer so that I can compete in the Summer Games Powerlifting Competion. I'll keep you guys updated on my progress towards my goal.

Supplements

2011-10-28T08:04:00.001-07:00

Here’s a little bit about the supplements I am currently taking. For our pre-workout we have just about tried everything on the market. Basically if they make it we have tried it. We are currently on a pre-workout called Blitz from Complete Nutrition it is supposed to be a concentrated pre-workout drink. My dad really likes this one so we came back to it after trying the new N.O.Xplode 2.0. It is a decent supplement and we feel pretty good pumps with this, it also helps us focus and stay awake (which is nice since we work out at 5 in the morning haha).

As for our post workout we take Whey Protein from Muscle Milk. We both really like this supplement, it seems to help cut back on the soreness we feel after working out. We find that the Muscle Milk taste pretty good and it mixes easy so it’s not all chalky. I am also taking Creatine Monohydrate, I recently started back up on this so I haven’t really seen much difference yet.

I just finished a cycle with Methyl 1-D and I felt no real difference while taking it. I felt a slight increase in strength but I saw no difference in my physique at all. So I moved to a different "prohormone" called Super Nova by Legal Limit Labs. I have only been on this cycle for about 2 weeks and have seen a little bit of strength increase but once again no real change in physique.

If anyone knows of any good supplements let me know I am always in the market for some good supps.

Greetings Everyone

2011-10-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hey what’s up everyone?!

Thanks for visiting my blog! I created this blog to follow me and my Dad’s workouts, and track our progess to becoming beasts in the weight room.

My dad on the far left with all the winners at the Utah Summer Games Powerlifting Competition

Me and my Dad started working out about 2 years ago. We started because we both wanted to get into better shape and to gain some strength. We started out with no real goal in mind other than to just trim up. We did that for about 6 months and saw a little bit of weight loss and fat loss. At the beginning of this year my dad got the idea to compete in the Utah Summer Games powerlifting competition. The events included bench, squat, and deadlift. So in January we got serious about lifting heavy weight and quit worrying so much about being cut.

We saw some huge gains in our lifts once we got serious and started lifting heavy weights. For the first time ever my bench got over the 3 plate mark. I played football in high school and was one of the strongest kids on the team my senior year but I focused on squat and deadlift more than bench. So in high school my max bench was only about 275 lbs while my deadlift was 605 lbs and my squat was about 520 lbs.

Both me and my dad were excited that our bench max had gone up so high. Our lifting routine was Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we would do upper body then Tuesdays and Thursdays we would do lower body. My dad had seen some huge gains on his squat and deadlift. He has bad knees and at first had a hard time even doing a plate (135 lbs). After a couple of months his knees were getting better and he had more range of motion and he was able to lift a lot more weight than before.

A month before the summer games I reinjured my back (I have 2 herniated discs in my lower back). I had to lay of the heavy leg lifting so I was unable to compete. I still continued to go to the gym with my dad I just did not lift much on the days we did lower body.

My dad competed in the summer games and kicked butt! He didn’t do as well as he had hoped but he still took first place in his age group and lifted a combined weight of 865 lbs for the 3 lifts. Although he didn’t do as well as he had hoped he killed it on the deadlift and got a new max of 370 lbs and he could have easily did 405 lbs. It was such a cool experience to go down and watch him compete. Hopefully this next June we will be able to go down and compete together.

After the summer games we went back to trying to get cut so we changed our workout up but after 3 months we decided we wanted to be stronger instead of cut so we changed it up again. We are now trying to lift big again. That’s why I am calling my blog Lift Big to Get Big. I will post stuff about our progress and all the steps we take on our way to our goal of being beasts in the gym!