10/16/12, intro and Ab&Tri workout

You shouldn't need a nutritionalist or a personal trainer. If you align your workouts with mine, I can and will help you reach your goals. (especially if you want to gain muscle, and lose fat!)
My current goals in the gym and kitchen:
-Gain size
-Bulk phase (slightly dirty bulk-it's ok!) During bulk phase, I intentionally eat more calories than I'm going to burn. It's a caloric excess that will get you growing. A defecit will have you cutting, obviously. Just like with a workout, be 100% honest with yourself 100% of the time in the kitchen.

Tonight is a tricep and abdominal workout. Remember, time your workout! It's one thing to be able to do all of the exercises and reps, but it's another thing to do it in a shorter time period. Similar to going up in weight, if you go down in workout time (even staying at the same weight) you will see gains in strength and muscularity. I train with a partner, and when I'm done with a set, he starts, and vice versa. It's a good way to keep a good pace in the gym.

On to the workout. FORM is more important than WEIGHT. If you have to move the weight down, do not get discouraged. This isn't a program to make you lift the most weight all time, it's designed for appearance and strength. Concentrate on your form, try not to "cheat" in any way on the exercises. You are accountable to YOU, and your results depend on YOU. As will be the norm, please feel free to contact me with any questions about my workouts, nutrition, or anything you feel I can assist you with. :)

Stretch! On most days in the gym, I'm the only person I see stretching. I'm also the person working the hardest....keep these things in mind when looking for results! As today is triceps and abs, those will be focused on during stretching. I always stretch the full body, but get specific with the muscles I'm working as well.

Tonight we start with Abs. A simple 3-exercise set, 12 reps each exercise.
-Lying knee raises (lie flat on your back, heels 2" off the ground. Bring your knees up so your calves are parallel with the floor. Then bring your knees to your chest. it's a 2-part movement) 12 reps
-Giant exercise ball crunches (position the ball mid-back, so you can get a full crunch and stretch on each rep) 12 reps
-Weighted straight arm crunches (I use 10# weights in each hand. Lying flat on your back with knees bent and feet on floor, extend your arms straight up so they are perpendicular to the ground. Do your reps while keeping your arms straight) 12 reps. Do that set of 3 exercises 3 total times.
From there, move to cable crunches, using the rope. We did 3 sets of 20 reps, with a 4th set as a double failure dropset. 160/180/200 pounds for the 3 sets. Then 220/140 for the dropset, I was able to do 11 reps of the 220 and 22 reps of the 140.

On to triceps. First exercise was the Jay Cutler tricep pressdown, flared elbows. We did 10 sets, of 15/12/10/8/6 reps over each shoulder. Weights were 140/160/180/200/230
Followed those up with two sets of dumbbell tricep kickbacks. First set was a dropset, 30# for 8 reps and 20# for 4 reps (each arm). Then I did burnouts with the 20's for a second set with each arm.
Moved on to single arm cable tricep pulldown, reverse grip. 3 sets with each arm, 12/12/12 reps. 15/20/25 weight for the sets.

Done! We completed this workout in 1:02. As always, I consume a serving of Muscle Pharm Re-Con in a shaker with 12oz water, immediately upon finishing the last exercise in the gym.

Feel free to ask for clarification on anything. Also, if you'd like a custom nutrition schedule based on your personal weight and body fat%, I can help with that.