Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13

Friday is deadlift day. 'Nuff said. It doesn't matter what else I do as long as I complete at least 3-4 sets of deadlifts. I rarely superset with deadlifts because, well, they take a lot out of me all by themselves. Today, however, I decided to stick with the superset plan even with the deadlifts.

I'm also sticking with my plan to do leg presses on deadlift days. Since the hip flexors, quads and hamstrings are also heavily involved in the deadlift, I like to throw in the presses for some extra leg work.

So for Friday's workout, I supersetted deadlift with seated row, vertical leg press with step-ups. Why seated row, you wonder? Deadlifts are great for strengthening all of the back muscles. I've found that I get good results when I do middle and upper back movements on the same day I do deadlifts. Usually, after completing several sets of deadlifts, I'll move to seated row and bent-over row and finish up with upright row. I'm changing that mix a little these days to work in more of the step-ups and leg presses. I'll save the other movements for the days on which I do pull-ups and/or overhead presses.

Deadlifts: 4 x 6 @ 275
Seated row: 4 x 6-8 @ 160

Vertical leg press: 4 x 6-8 @ 350
Step-ups: 10 reps each leg

Doing the step-ups after the leg presses was tough, but not quite as bad as doing them in the frontal squat-squat-step-up superset. I had planned on doing some work on the stair climber to finish up, but, frankly, after the deadlifts, leg presses and step-ups, I was just plain spent.

I've been working out a lot lighter on the deadlift than normal because it tends to cause problems with my back when I lift heavy. I almost always use wraps so I can lift heavier (since the grip is always the first thing to go), but I've been using an under/over hand position, which works well, but the downside is that I can't perform as many reps as I could if I used the wraps. In a way, I think that's a good thing. I know I can lift up to 325 without the wraps, but doing any more than one rep at that weight without wraps is out of the question. That's good because I think relying on the wraps to lift heavier is part of the reason I've had the back issues.

Saturday:
Saturday is arm day, but because I feel like I've been overtraining my triceps, today it was biceps and abs. No supersets today, but I finished the biceps workout with drop sets on dumbbells. Here's how it breaks down:

Standing barbell curl:
2 x 4 @115
2 x 4 @100
2 x 5-6 @95

Preacher curl:
3 x 4-6 @70

Dumbbell drop sets:
50 x 6
45 x 5
35 x 4
20 x 8
15 x 10

Crunches on the Powertec Workbench ab station:
3 x 10-15 @ 60

I finished up with 10 minutes on the stair climber.

Tomorrow: Shoulders and lats.