Week 2, Day 5

Today's Training:

Today was Chest and Bicpes day. This is one of the day's I look most forward to . Mostly because I think chest is one of my weakest areas and this is my time to make improvements each week.

Decline BB Press: 205 x 8

Incline Smith: 160 (pounds on bar) x 8

Flat Fly: 45 x 7

Flat DB Bench: 85 x 5

Seated one arm Cable Curl - 120 x 8

Barbell Curls: 125 x 7

Hammer Curls: 60 x 6

Physique Assessment 7 weeks out:

At this point, I'm still planning on competing in the NPC North American on Sept. 4th. That puts me 7 weeks out. I'm pleased with both my progress and where I'm at so far. I was down another pound today (163) and I can see visible differences in my abs and low back. So far, so good. I'll keep my diet and cardio the same next week.

Incline Smith Machine Press

The pictured exercise is the Incline Smith Machine Press. Normally, I prefer to use the free weight barbell for this, but I've done that the last 16 weeks or so and I was really in a rut as far as improvements. Therefore I switched over to the Smith Machine for a little something different. I place the bench so that the bar comes down to the very top of my chest and I concentrate and flexing the chest muscles the whole way up. One thing I like about the smith machine over the free bar is that I can push myself to failure better. For instance today when I couldn't complete another rep on my own, my workout was able to assist me with forced reps and negatives better than if I was on a free weight incline press.