Today was different. I worked out at The Gym Maui.

I’m in Maui for my younger sister’s destination wedding, but that doesn’t mean I stop lifting! 🙂

It’s a pretty cool gym. From the pictures on the wall, I get the feeling it’s been around for a few decades. You can tell at the core it’s a hardcore bodybuilding gym, but it’s obviously evolved to the changing face of the modern fitness industry. When I was looking for a gym to visit while in Maui, it seemed to fit my needs the best. That said, it’s not 100% to my needs – I lift more in a strength/powerlifting style, and The Gym Maui is more bodybuilding oriented. That’s not to say it’s a bad gym — it’s great, actually, and I was able to do all I needed without problem.

But for example, the bench. The uprights weren’t actually upright, but were arched and the hooks were deep. Plus, there was no adjustment. As a result, pressing the bar out of the hooks was awkward because it was a little further behind and it was almost a half-press for me — just not the best leverages here. Then when you want to rack it, you want to hit the uprights then come down into the hooks, but the uprights were swayed back so you had a long way to travel to hit the uprights — again, not great when you’ve got a lot of weight in your hands. There was another bench that had straight uprights, but the hooks were even lower and the bench had a squishy cushion (not good for stabliity). Ah well. It’s minor nitpicks, but I’m happy with things overall. Frankly, seeing all those Hammer Strength machines made me drool a little bit. 🙂

But also, things were simply different. Many of my movements today were on selectorized machines, and things were just slightly different. Different gearing, different pulley diameters, counter weights, etc. and one’s numbers can’t be quite the same. So I adjusted as I could so I could still get good work. Those Cybex selectorized machines tho – very very smooth.

All this to say, if you just look at the numbers this session may not look like a progression, but from a workload perspective, it was.

Pulldowns were fine. One big takehome from running RP’s MPT is putting pulldowns first and going heavy on them — I’ve always put pulldowns as a later movement, but putting them first and going heavy? It works well!

Benching was a little bit of ego today. I was scheduled to do 220 but I did 225 because I hate the “almost-next-wheel” weights: 130, 220, 310, etc.. Stupid I know, but whatever. I enjoyed the session.

I did skip ab work because I did need to get going. Got a late start, and I’ve got things to do around the island today (like visiting Keālia Pond.

RP Physique, Mesocycle 1.1

• Neutral-Grip Pulldown
  • 90 x 10
  • 130 x 5
  • 160 x 9
  • 160 x 8
  • 160 x 7
  • 160 x 7
  • 160 x 6
• Wide-Grip Pulldown
  • 130 x 8
  • 120 x 9
  • 120 x 8
  • 120 x 8
  • 120 x 8
  • 120 x 8
• Underhand EZ-Bar Row
  • 125 x 10
  • 125 x 10
  • 125 x 10
  • 125 x 10
  • 125 x 9
• Cable Upright Row
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 10
• Bench Press
  • 45 x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 3
  • 225 x 6
  • 225 x 6
  • 225 x 6
  • 225 x 6
  • 225 x 6
  • 225 x 5
• Incline Wide-Grip Bench Press
  • 155 x 10
  • 155 x 10
  • 155 x 9
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 6