MonStar's Journal: P/RR/S For Life!!

[M.J.H.]

shiznit: I PM'ed you bro, so I think it should be fine if you e-mail it.

 

[shiznit2169]

i emailed it to you monstar, good luck.

 

[M.J.H.]

shiznit: Thanks bro, I appreciate it bud! I'll let you know what I think about it.

 

[LauraMarie]

Good Luck with this journal sweetie. I'll be supporting you and trying to help you out.

 

[LauraMarie]

I'll be following along with you every step of the way

 

[soxmuscle]

Laura -- lets see some pictures of ya, girl.

 

[Saturday Fever]

The point of the suspended bench is to train you to be able to explode. Everytime someone benches a heavy weight, they slow the rep down because they're afraid to lose control of the bar. That's fair enough. It's probably everyone's nightmare to drop a heavy bench and have the bar go plowing through their chest. Suspended bench, while allowing you to train the weak spot primarily, also helps get past mental blocks. You can lose the bar if you want and all you're going to do is make a lot of noise at the gym.

To complement suspended bench, do bentover rows with an overhand grip and your bench-width grip. Keep your shoulders pulled back and shrugged in as if you were using bench form and your lats will get stronger on the bench. I don't know or care if that approach will do much to "optimize hypertrophy" but then, if you're doing a suspended bench, then "optimal hypertrophy" probably isn't your goal anyways.

Anywho, starting numerous journals is MonStar's summer ritual. Either learn to deal with it or ignore him. Either way, isn't your problem of not wanting to see 3 journals every week solved?

Pretty sweet Mike, 37 posts and only 2 or 3 were journal related.

 

[soxmuscle]

Saturday Fever's back? wow. good to hear from you again.

 

[Rocco32]

The point of the suspended bench is to train you to be able to explode. Everytime someone benches a heavy weight, they slow the rep down because they're afraid to lose control of the bar. That's fair enough. It's probably everyone's nightmare to drop a heavy bench and have the bar go plowing through their chest. Suspended bench, while allowing you to train the weak spot primarily, also helps get past mental blocks. You can lose the bar if you want and all you're going to do is make a lot of noise at the gym.

To complement suspended bench, do bentover rows with an overhand grip and your bench-width grip. Keep your shoulders pulled back and shrugged in as if you were using bench form and your lats will get stronger on the bench. I don't know or care if that approach will do much to "optimize hypertrophy" but then, if you're doing a suspended bench, then "optimal hypertrophy" probably isn't your goal anyways.

Anywho, starting numerous journals is MonStar's summer ritual. Either learn to deal with it or ignore him. Either way, isn't your problem of not wanting to see 3 journals every week solved?

Pretty sweet Mike, 37 posts and only 2 or 3 were journal related.

Hey there Saturday, nice to see you back. Thanks for the info here I'm adding other exercises in at certain times for hypertrophy, but otherwise I'm trying Westside again

 

[M.J.H.]

Laura: Hey there, lol, you sound like you're talking to one of your clients at L.A. Weight-Loss. Thanks for the support, make sure I stick to my diet! We need to stay away from Chinese buffets, lol.

soxmuscle: For the 10th time now, I don't want to see your name in my journal. I don't feel like having to PM Rob about this because for some reason when politely asked you can't take a hint. I have ZERO interest in what you have to say, I don't care for you personally, and I don't post in your journal. So please offer me the same respect and keep your name out of my journal. My girlfriend isn't the type to to post any pictures, so don't bother asking again.

SF: Thanks for stopping by dude, appreciate it. You can offer much better insight when it comes to helping Rocco's bench right off his chest. Funny you say that about me starting journals a lot during the summer, I'll have to agree with you there bro. For some reason every summer I go through this same cycle I don't really know why, either. As you know I'm giving P/RR/S a whirl, and even though I don't think you're a huge fan, feel free to post comments/suggestions about my workouts. Of course---staying within the realm of the P/RR/S guidelines.

Rocco: Westside was a fabulous program. Good luck with it, man.

 

[M.J.H.]

P/RR/S Cycle 1 | Power Week
Thursday; 6-23-2005​

Back

T-Bar Rows:

315 x 7
360 x 5
385 x 3!

Nice PR here today! These are ghetto t-bar rows on one side of a barbell. This isn't a full-blown PR because I have rowed 405 in the past but in the past few months my strength has plummetted. 385 by the way is seven 45's and a quarter plate.

CG Cable Pulldowns:

245 x 6
260 x 5
275 x 3!

I am 15 lbs. away from using the entire stack here on cable pulldowns. I really impressed myself today with 275 for a triple. I've never gone over 260 in the past on this Nautilus machine.

Crossbench DB Pullovers:

105 x 6
105 x 5

Nice using a 105 lbs. DB here for pullovers. Really stretched the hell out of my lats and serratus, completely. Got a few funny looks in the gym for going so heavy on pullovers, lol.

Diet/Supplements:

Preworkout: 1 scoop of whey protein + skim milk, 25mcg T3
During Workout: 20 oz. Gatorade + 5g creatine
Postworkout: 1 scoop of whey protein + skim milk
Meal 1: 1% cottage cheese + yogurt
Meal 2: tuna + crackers
Meal 3: whole-wheat turkey & cheese sandwich
Meal 4: tuna & cheese wrap
Meal 5: chili + beans
Meal 6: peanut butter
Meal 7: 2 scoops weight-gainer + skim milk

My goal honestly is to eat enough to not binge, and focus on calories and protein. Trying to take in a lot of protein.

BTW, yesterday for some reason I can't edit my journal entry. So what I ended up eating the rest of the day was 2 whole-wheat tuna sandwiches, chili & beans, 1/2 a peanut butter sandwich, a weight-gainer shake, and a turkey & cheese wrap. Ended up taking in around 300-310g of protein or so, yesterday. Not too bad at all.

Sleep: 7 hours. Had to get up to drive my sister to camp, whatever. Going to shoot for a minimum of 8 hours in the future.

Weight: 218.5 lbs. Up a few pounds from yesterday, not too big of a deal.

 

[Rocco32]

Thanks for your support Mike

Great w/o! And congrats on the PR's. Way to go. Do you have any lower back pain when doing the ghetto style T-Bar Row?

 

[M.J.H.]

Rocco: Hey bro, nope I don't have any lower back pain when doing ghetto style t-bar rows. I straddle the bar with a wide stance and just pull the v-bar to my sternum. No problems at all. I feel it a little bit in my lower back after each set but nothing too extreme. You might want to make sure you're arching your back and sitting back as you start off each set. I have seen a few guys do them and they're rounding their back and leaning way too far forward.

 

[soxmuscle]

honest question. when you t-bar row, are you using a machine or just the barbell. and if your using just the barbell where do you place your hands as to make it comfortable?

 

[M.J.H.]

soxmuscle: When I do my t-bar rows I do them ghetto style since my gym doesn't have a conventional t-bar apparatus. So I take one side of the barbell and put it up against the wall---and straddle a 120 lbs. DB over the empty side of the barbell. On the other side of the barbell I load the 45's. To grab the barbell I wrap a v-bar attachment around the barbell and grip that. The v-bar is usually used for pulldowns, etc. and has a palms-facing grip. I straddle the barbell, and pull the v-bar to my sternum/waist.

Here is a picture I found of exactly how the exercise looks:

 

[soxmuscle]

i have tried that before and came away feeling really ackward. i have a back day today so maybe i'll try a light set of them again, thanks.

 

[M.J.H.]

soxmuscle: If I had to guess I would say you're probably rounding your back some and maybe not sitting back enough with your hips. I see guys in the gym trying them all the time and the most common error I see with them is people not arching their back enough. I have a video at home of me doing these, I think it was a PR video actually, and I'll see if maybe I can get it uploaded tonight. I know there used to be a few t-bar videos I had uploaded on IM a while back. Not sure where they are now, though.

I'm at work so I can't view these but here is a lot of my old videos, I'm not sure if they work or not:

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/temp/Monstar/

 

[shiznit2169]

wow monstar, you're incredibly strong. After seeing those videos of you squatting and deadlifting 500+ pounds like it's nothing, i was like

How old are you and how long have you been lifting for?

 

[M.J.H.]

shiznit: Hey bro, thanks for the support. Those videos are extremely old. I have a lot of new ones on my home computer. I have a few of some newer PR's in deadlift, some DB curl PR's (the 70's or 80's I believe), etc. I have been working out since I was 12. Yes I was actually 12, my dad bought a universal machine and some freeweights and I became obsessed. Bought every bodybuilding magazine I could find, etc. A few years later I discovered Bodybuilding.com, then EliteFitness.com, then WannaBeBig.com, and now I'm here at IronMagazine.com. Of course the first 3-4 years like most people I had no idea what I was doing at all. I remember I would train for football in the school gym with the team doing squats, deadlifts, power cleans, etc. And then go home after practice and do my bodybuilding workouts, lol. Talk about severe overtraining.

 

[Seanp156]

That honestly makes me feel like I'm getting a late start .

I love how you drop the weight on your deads .

 

[soxmuscle]

I have all those videos downloaded on my computer already from a long long time ago. Thats wierd. Ill have to look over that t-bar row video. Thanks.

 

[shiznit2169]

ya, you're lucky you have a lot of space to be able to drop the weight like that doing deadlifts. There isn't much room around the area where the squat rack is at my gym because that is the only bar i can use for deads. I can only perform deadlifts until im 1 rep short of failure and then i have place it back on the rack. I cant attempt to go for one more, or do heavier weight because i cannot afford to drop the weight on the floor or otherwise everyone would be looking at me and the trainers would be pissed. (no slamming weights on floor signs on the walls)

By the way, hows the BFFM ebook going if you've read any of it yet?

 

[M.J.H.]

Seanp: Haha, everyone starts somewhere right? Don't worry about. For years I had absolutely no idea at all what I was doing. I did everything in superset, giant set, or triset form, lol. Tons of volume, tons of intensity techniques, etc.

BTW, I always drop the weight on deads, lol. After I complete the rep I'm basically exhausted and thinking, f*ck it, and just letting go, haha.

soxmuscle: No problem, bro.

shiznit: I can tell that I do piss people off sometimes, but oh well. I mean when you're pulling up 600+ lbs. you can only put it down so lightly. Thats how I feel about the situation, at least. Even when I'm doing flat DB presses with the 120's I can only put down the DB's so lightly. They usually just flop down no matter what I do.

 

[LauraMarie]

Mmmmm, look at you in those workout videos baby! Your body looks so hot. Lol, in like the 5th video it looks like you're having sex

 

[Rocco32]

Hey, thanks for posting that link to your vids again. Your a great person to watch form on.

 

[LauraMarie]

Have a good day today sexy! I'll be calling you later. Hope you have a great workout today

 

[M.J.H.]

Laura: Haha, those videos are so old. I have a bunch of new ones around here somwhere. T-bar rows look like I'm having sex? I don't know what kind of sex that is, lol. Thanks for the support, hun, but no workout today, just some cardio and abs. My split is:

1. Chest
2. Back
3. Rest (cardio/abs)
4. Shoulders
5. Arms
6. Rest (cardio/abs)



Rocco: Hey no problem bro, I might start posting more videos in the near future. I do go some crazy looks at the gym when I do it, but oh well, lol.

 

[M.J.H.]

P/RR/S Cycle 1 | Power Week
Friday; 6-24-2005​

Rest

Cardio:

10 minutes of interval training on the treadmill; alternated 1-minute of walking at 3.5 MPH with 1-minute of 10.5 MPH.

Completely soaked in sweat after this!

Rope Cable Crunches:

140 x 20
140 x 20

Not too bad here today.

Diet/Supplements:

Preworkout: 1 scoop of whey protein + skim milk, 25mcg T3
Postworkout: 1 scoop of whey protein + skim milk
Meal 1: 1% cottage cheese + yogurt
Meal 2: peanut butter + crackers
Meal 3: chili + beans
Meal 4: whole-wheat tuna sandwich
Meal 5: whole-wheat tuna sandwich
Meal 6:

Sleep: 6 + 2 hours. Woke up in the middle of my sleep crying, lol, had a horrible nightmare about my brother dying in a car accident.

Weight: 217 lbs. Little lower, not too bad.

 

[Rocco32]

Damn Mike, your brother is still alive right? I mean he didn't die awhile ago and your just dreaming about it, it was just a totally made up dream correct? Just making sure of that. I hate those dreams!

Nice w/o and look at you tearing up the treadmill

 

[M.J.H.]

Rocco: Hey man, yeah my bro is completely fine just a retarded dream. Really creeped me out because of how real it felt. But anyway, yeah I did tear it up on the treadmill. 10 minutes sounds like nothing, but I am drenched in sweat after those 10 minutes, man. I am thinking about ordering some bromocriptine. I was going to go with Sesathin but I have read about people having decreased libido, I can't be having that!