As much as I love strength building, I love a good arm day as well. Chasing that pump; Arnold was right. 🙂

The general program is around some heavier stuff to start, then working to isolation and pump. Trying to not focus on weight, but on quality of contractions, holds, etc.

Curls are curls. Work up, then AMRAP and 50%. Superset with close-grip bench. Went fine.

The incline hammer curls were cool. Curl up simultaneously, then a 3-5 second lowering. Go to failure. Then stand up and try to get a few alternating supinating curls. I could only get 2-3 each time and not even full lifts. But it’s just there to push a little bit more.

I tried doing the French Press seated, but again new gym, learning which pieces of equipment work, and this bench’s back was too high. So I just did them standing.

Those incline bang curls — geez! Sure the weight is really light, but so what. Keeping the DB’s pressed together the whole time, a 3 second squeeze at the top? You don’t need much weight. Then the rope extensions were a little awkward. The new gym’s setup only let me use one of the cable crossover stations for the pulldown, so I had to up the weight (2 pulleys, different mechanical advantage0. But due to lengths and heights of the cables and setup, I couldn’t be upright — had to step back a bit and bend over. Still, it overall was fine. First 20 see the wrist twisting outward to really squeeze the triceps, then after those 20 just straight-wrist and a little bent over torso to just keep eeking out more reps until you can’t any more.

Wow. HUGE pump. It was awesome. 😉

I do have to make a few adjustments, but not much.

So how was the first week on this new program? Pretty good. I generally like the setup and think it’ll hold me for a while. Next week will be trying out the adjustments, and I’m sure by week 3 things will be dialed in. Then come week 4 I expect my body will be adapting, so it’ll be time to add intensity techniques like drop sets or cheat reps or other things to push beyond failure.

That all said, there is one point of concern. I have been starting to feel the arm pain. It’s slight, but it’s there. I have some thinking to do.

• BB Curls (elbows in, wider grip), (superset)
  • 45 x 8
  • 55 x 7
  • 65 x 6
  • 75 x 5
  • 85 x 4
  • 95 x 3
  • 65 x 15 (AMRAP)
  • 65 x 10 (50%)
• Close-Grip Bench
  • 95 x 8
  • 115 x 7
  • 135 x 6
  • 170 x 5
  • 190 x 4
  • 210 x 3
  • 175 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 175 x 7 (50%)
• Incline Hammer Curls into standing DB curls (with supination), (superset)
  • 25e x 12
  • 25e x 10
  • 25e x 8
• Standing French Press
  • 65 x 15
  • 65 x 15
  • 65 x 15
• Incline Bang Curls (superset)
  • 15e x 10
  • 15e x 12
  • 15e x 10
• Rope Pressdowns (twist out hands at bottom, then after failure just straight to eek out some more)
  • 60 x 40
  • 60 x 35
  • 60 x 30