DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day 5

OK here we go with day five, push day.

First off in case anyone missed it in the previous entries, I'm well aware that these videos are crappy as hell! I'm just leaning my phone up against stuff and hoping it is pointed in more or less the right direction. We ARE going to do a proper video soon though.

Anyway day five is a lot like day one, except we start with the vertical pushing movements and accessory exercises. Except for me, my "vertical" movement is more like a incline press. A little steeper than usual for an incline press... sort of half way in between. This program is designed to be customisable to each person's individual requirements, and this suits mine. On day one I do a stricter vertical push as you'll see four days from now.

So... watch the video and you'll see my "almost vertical" press from various angles... the first angle being not particularly dignified. I worked up to 40kg dumbbells in each hand for 6 reps here, which I was quite pleased with. I throw in some Dumbbell Flies after this just for good measure (that's not on most people's cards) and then move on to Side Lateral Raises.



Take a good look at my Side Lateral Raises for two reasons. One, the video is crappy as hell, and two this is how I want you to do them if you're on my program. Start out standing at attention, then rotate your shoulders in slightly. Now lift out to the side keeping your arms straight (but not locked out at the elbows), a little pause at the top, and lower down sloooowly. You'll see people do these a million different ways but in my opinion this is the best way to isolate those middle deltoid muscles. At the top of the movement, imagine you're pouring water out of a jug or something... that's the position your arms should be in. Pinky finger higher than thumb, you dig?

Next up is LEGS and today I supersetted some 45 Degree Leg Press with V Squat Machine. It was horrible. 240kg leg press in this video though. I was pretty happy with that.

Finally you have me doing some Cable Flies. A lot like the Dumbbell Flies earlier (and the Pec Dec the other day), I am trying to keep my shoulders back, squeeze those pectoral muscles, control the weight on the way back to the starting position and release the contraction slooowly. Sorry the camera positioning was a bit crap on this one. More so than usual.

I finished up with some flat Barbell Press (aka horizontal pushing), but I was knackered so that shit was NOT worth recording! Great session all up though!

Now, the drive home on the other hand... that's a different story!

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DHPT Power Precision & Pump Day 4

Yesterday I spontaneously decided to record some of my training and post it up here, and then today... about half way through training, mind you... I decided I should do that every day until there's a video and a post for each day on my 8 day split. Yeah, 8 day split. You heard me.

This is my Day Four of my Power, Precision & Pump Program, and it's a PULL day. 

POWER movement is DEADLIFTS. I did an OK job of these and worked up to 140kg for 3 reps which was quite satisfactory after having a couple of weeks off deadlifting with some tenderness in the lower back. Also I did some Reverse Hyper Extensions after this, just to stretch out a bit.

Now... today's a bit of a weird day on my card because I have a few movements where I'm focussed on going as heavy as I can aka POWER mode. Of course you always want to go as heavy as you can, but usually there's only one POWER movement and then some stuff that's more about doing more reps, more precise techniques and so on.

Anyway. After Deadlifts and Reverse Hyper Extension I did a little warm up for upper body and then went into Upright Rows. I recorded a set, watched it back, and noticed that I wasn't terribly happy with my technique. In the first set on this video you can see my elbows coming backwards a bit... which I don't want. This is one of the few exercises where I want to rotate my shoulders forward a bit, rather than pulling them back. I'm happier with my form on the second set in this video. Oh also with these pulling movements, we do want to pull nice and fast to really activate those back muscles (trapezius in this case)... so, this tempo is fine IMO even though it looks kinda fast and uncontrolled on the video.

Next up is shrugs on the Hammerstrength Machine. I love this machine cos I can pile a lot of weights on to it (140kg today) and it makes me feel like a big strong man! You can see in these videos I'm trying to keep my shoulders back, chest up, and squeeeze up nice and high. You'll see a lot of people doing more of a rotating type of shrug, but IMO that's no good. We're trying to work our traps here, and they're on your back. Pulling your shoulders back from the start of the exercise pre-engages the targeted muscle group and makes sure you get a strong muscle contraction.

All of this is moot if you're a woman though because I'll probably swap this exercise out and give you an Assisted Pull Up instead.

Next up in the video is Face Pulls which is one of my favourite exercises these days. In this one I'm really trying to hit the rear deltoid muscle which is at the rear of the shoulder. This is a precision movement and I'm focussing on keeping my wrists, elbows and shoulders even. There's a tendency with these to rotate from the shoulder and end up with your forearms more vertical.... that's not what I want though.

Finally some Hamstring Curls to finish off, and then I did more Reverse Hyper Extensions. I'm a bit embarrassed to include these Hamstring Curls in the video... they are WAY too fast and I'm not resisting / controlling the weight enough on the way down. This is why it is good to take videos once in a while if you train on your own and don't have a trainer or a lifting partner, you can spot any little mistakes than you'll know to keep in mind next time.

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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Training Videos

We're going to do a proper training video soon, where my friend & photographer will bring a good camera and I talk and stuff as well as showing how I train. These ones are just me leaning my crappy phone against a wall, pointing it in the general direction of where I'm training and then hoping for the best! Just for a bit of fun really.

Let's run through today's session.

It was PUSH day, one of the big legs days on my card. I started off with some hack squats to warm up, just using the machine with no extra weights on it. Then into my POWER movement of the day, which was barbell lunges. I recorded my final, heaviest set which was 80kg for 6 reps. I feel like I can probably go a bit heavier next week.



Next up and not shown in the video was some Standing Calf Raises.

Moving on to upper body, first off a little warm up on the Pec Dec before moving on to some PUMP stuff. Watching this back I feel I could have gone a bit slower on this... my focus here was on keep my chest up and my shoulders pulled back to really activate the pectoral muscles. You see a lot of people leaning into this one, with shoulders pulled forward and I just don't think that's a very efficient technique. Lighter weight here, and lots of reps, stretching out at the end of the movement, and then squeezing in again.

Now PUMP movement for upper body. Decline Press. Again, it always seems a lot slower when I'm doing it than it looks when I watch the video later! On this one though we're using a lighter weight (relatively speaking) than we would in POWER mode, so we can really focus on technique and tempo. Again shoulders are pulled back to activate more pectorals, and on the downward part of the movement I want that bar coming down SLOOOOOWLY like you're a bit afraid of it or something. And then an explosive movement to push it back up again. You can hopefully see that even at the top of the movement my elbows are not locked out and my shoulders are still retracted. The last few reps start to speed up cos I was feeling the fatigue and wanted to make sure I got a few 12 reps. This was also 80kg!

Not shown in the video, I hit some cable flies and machine lateral raises next before heading back to the leg room for something horrible in the form of a Hack Squat & Leg Extension Superset. Straight from one to the other with no rest, just trying to squeeze every ounce of energy out of those quadriceps and get them pumped up full of blood and nutrients. In those Hack Squats I'm focussed on getting as low as possible, and on keeping my butt and lower back against the pad. There can be a tendency to roll the hips underneath at the bottom of the movement, and that's not good. Again, we're using a relatively lighter weight on these PUMP rep ranges so really lock in some solid and safe technique.

And that was it for today! Thank goodness the weather is a lot more mild today, so I didn't end up as much of a disgusting, sweaty stinking mess as usual the past few weeks!

There are also some Power, Precision & Pump Resistance Training Videos from last week, in case you missed those.

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