Monday 24th March 2014 – Back Focus Week 1

After my recent article, injuring my shoulder (again DAMMIT!), and watching the ‘Dark Knight Rises’ (also again :-)) I have decided to re-visit a very effective workout phase I went through a couple of years ago whilst following Johnny Pains Greyskull LP. I am going to focus heavily on back training for the next 8 weeks to bring my back up to a decent standard again alongside some specific rotator cuff exercises which I have been neglecting for waaaay too long!  I will be using the same basic template as he lays out with a few ‘Hench’ additions (including rotator cuff work). On top of this as the Deadlift is my weakest lift, the next 8 weeks should hopefully help bring that up too!

I never used to suffer from shoulder pains at all until recently, which I put down to no longer teaching BodyPump. Although I am glad I don’t have to go through it twice a week, it seems logical that it has been responsible for keeping my shoulder health as very little else has changed in my workouts, and it has been a slow decline into the old battered shoulder territory ever since I stopped.

Started the week off with:

DB Pullover 40kg x12x11 (2 mins rest)

Weighted Chins 24kg x6, 20kg x6 (2 mins rest), then after 60 seconds Chin-ups x10 – felt much harder after pullovers!

DB Row To Hip 30kg x12x12 (60s)

Power Cleans – heavy singles up to 100kg

Deadlift 140kg x7 – expected this to be lower than usual after that amount of back work and focusing hard on technique

G Row 40kg x5x5 (2 mins)