Good Morn Gym Rats! All I can say is my shoulders are SPENT. Honestly, they are so sore right now I can’t even believe it; I haven’t felt a shoulder burn like this in months! Adding to this is an increasing bicep and tricep burn leftover from Monday’s lift sesh. The reason for all of this is that upon leaving the gym on Saturday I randomly bumped into an old gym friend I hadn’t seen in a few years. You know, one of those rare people who you don’t really know outside of the gym but when you do encounter them they actually have really good tips and advice for you. Anyway, I was shocked to see him, having assumed that he had moved away long ago. Just my luck though, he had randomly purchased a week pass to World’s while on a stay-cation for the week and decided his new gym down in Saco was a nuisance to commute to. He mentioned training together so we agreed to meet on Monday. Long story short, best lifting partner ever. He always did have good exercise ideas but I’d never actually done a whole workout with him before. He’s the kind of person who really motivates you to push beyond your mental boundaries to get in those last burning reps and does so without being mean or condescending like some others can be when they THINK they are being motivating. It was such a good sesh that we agreed to do shoulders last night. For the most part I have stuck to my planned exercises but increased the weight on pretty much everything and gone from 3 to 4 sets all-around. Last night he showed me a better way of doing rear delt flies (IMO my most problem area) where instead of using a bench for support you get down in sort of a sumo squat position. What a killer burn! Then after my regular exercises we did overhead BB presses where I honestly felt like my muscles had finally hit failure. Seriously, even with his spotting, the 45 lb BB felt like I was trying to lift a 2,000 lb car! Then when I was ready to quit we went over to the pull-up bar and did 4 sets of hangs, increasing the hold time with each set. If I keep doing these on a regular basis I think I should be able to do unassisted pull-ups in the not-too-distant future! That would seriously be my dream if I could walk up to the bar by myself and bang out 8-12 unassisted pull-ups like it was nothing LOL.
So, suffice to say that I don’t really have DOMS right now because my shoulders felt like they were going to fall off before I even left the gym! Tonight we are planning on doing back but if my upper body pain increases throughout the day I may switch it with my core day to give myself a little more recovery time. Even though I’ve been back to the 5:00 pm schedule this week and the gym has been obnoxiously crowded per usual, I haven’t been annoyed at all. Working out with a male lifting partner who knows his shit seems to do the trick when it comes to fending off the squirrely tools!
Unfortunately I don’t know that he’ll continue to come after this week is over since World’s is kind of out of his way once he goes back to work but I’m going to do my best to convince him to at least make an occasional appearance. I do prefer to workout by myself but when you finally find a good lifting partner, it’s not something you want to give up! Anyway, off to work I go now. I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday; I’m so spent already! Do you prefer to workout alone or with a partner?
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