Monday night done right.

After a short, but long weekend due to the snowstorm that plowed across the east, I found myself back in my weekly mentality grind. Sure it would have been much easier and cozier to have spent Monday before going back to work just hanging out at home, playing some COD and preparing for the coming work week. But that would completely go against everything that I wrote on December 31st, 2015 at 12:58:54…

So I decided to down my preworkout, and I went to the gym. Prior to heading out, it was confirmed that they would be “open regular business hours,” but upon arrival, it was learned that they were going to close at SEVEN (7) PM EST. I looked at my phone and realized it was FIVE… Is this real life? I accepted the terms and conditions, and I played.

I’ve been hitting everything with heavy intensity, all compound movements have been kept at a rep range of 1 to five max, with sets ranging from 3 to 7. I’ve been performing this style of training for well over a few years now, and I’ve had great progress. But with recent tweaks and slight awareness pains that have been made by my joints, I have decided to incorporate a higher rep range, with a moderate amount of sets. Not only is this due to give my body rest from the constant CNS-grueling training I’ve forced it to adapt to, but to also give my body a different stimulus via conditioning in order to properly coincide with my current lifting goals of shedding fat while retaining muscle, and with my genetics, continue to build muscle in the long haul. 😉

The below was performed on Monday, 1/25, per my FitBit Surge, the total workout time was one and a half hours (not including prior foam roll/mental preparation/full body warm-up).

Keep in mind, I also perform one to three warm-up sets in each exercise before diving in.

Barbell Squats: 5×8, 185 | 225 | 245 | 275 | 300

Paused barbell squats: 2×5, 2×3, 225 | 225 | 275 | 315 (The first two sets consisted of five second pauses, followed by one to two second pauses on the last two)

*Hack Squats: 4×8-10, 180 | 180 | 230 | 270 (Not including the weight of the sled, only the plates)

*Hack Squats were performed with a three-four second descent during ECCENTRIC portion, followed by a one second ascent during CONCENTRIC portion. This is critical for proper fiber recruitment and muscular stimulation

Bulgarian Split Squats (One leg on a bench, while performing a lunge/squat movement): 4×12 per leg, Bodyweight | Bodyweight | +15lb DB | +15lb DB

Leg Extensions: 4 x 25, 20, 15, 10, 45 | 90 | 135 | 180

-Hamstrings-

Romanian deadlift: 4×8-12, 95 | 135 | 185 | 225

Lying leg curl: 4×12

One-legged ham curl: 4×12

Glute Bridges aka hip thrusters: 1×50, bodyweight

Towards the end, the glute bridges was just a way to burn out my glutes and hamstrings, as well as hip flexors and etc, because it was already seven o’clock and the gym had closed. I wanted to hit up calves as well, and do a little cardio, but clearly that was not possible.

All in all, a FANTASTIC/10 leg day, I would highly encourage anyone with fair gym experience to give this leg session a work through. I had an amazing pump, I’m sore today (I rarely ever get really sore unless I’m squatting very heavy) and overall it gave me one hell of a conditioning/thermogenic workout.