Evil’s Workout Plan – January 2014

My workout plan for January 2014 sees some changes: less unilateral training and the inverse barbell rows have done enough.

Christmas And A Mean Flu

Every year between Christmas and New Year’s I take a break from doing videos and from working out, because I want to devote that week entirely to my family. I also think my body likes that time off to refill its reserves. When I get back to training, my reps usually increase across all exercises.

This year, however, I got a really mean flu shortly after starting again. I kicked off on December 30, but by January 2nd had skull-splitting headaches, fever and flashes when I looked at something bright. It was out of the question to do anything beside lying on my couch and watching documentaries about crustaceans living off the French coast.

But let me tell you: two weeks off feels like cheating.

I hope that by tomorrow I’m back to DEFCON 5, and to get back to practice, will finish the missing half of the week where germs had their party in my system. That plan I did unchanged, which is why you didn’t see an update to my workout plan in December. You also now know why my new plan was delayed to the second week of January.

Evil’s Current Workout Plan (January 2014)

 
Once more I have to point you to ExRx for some exercises, as I haven’t yet done a video on those.

Let’s look at what changed and why.

Mondays Explained

Nothing much to see here. The weighted push-ups, flyes and close-grip bench presses went great when I did them after my Christmas break, so no reason to make any changes there.

The only exercise I changed was the lying triceps extensions. I felt that my form on them was not that good and I was unwillingly cheating myself by getting the shoulders too involved. Doing them seated should change the mechanics sufficiently. I’ll be looking forward to see what they can bring to the table after a very long while.

Wednesdays Explained

After doing pull-ups with the plateau breaker technique I explained here they are back to their normal three sets.

The reverse grip barbell rows gave me higher involvement from the lats as promised, and I’m now looking forward to see if they improved my lifts with regular rows.

For the biceps I debated with myself if I should switch from barbell to dumbbell curls. But as the barbell curls still work great, I decided against it. Why switch an exercise that still does its job?

What I really got tired off and also stalled on was the concentration curl. You don’t have that much choice training the brachialis at home, so I went for the inenvitable preacher curls.

Fridays Explained

The military presses still work and of course stay. But what I got enough of were the unilateral (training one side at the same time) exercises for the side and rear delts: the lying side raise and the lying rear delt raise.

For the side delts, there is one great compound to replace lying side raises with, and that’s the dumbbell raise. With these you not only train the shoulders, but a whole host of muscles. The rear delt row as a second compound then finishes off my shoulder training.

And A Video…

I probably should have done this video when I started posting my plans, but at least it now offered me a chance to do a short video: