Finally finished my first year of med school classes on July 28. We are off until August 30. It is great to have time off – cannot be thankful enough for that. In the past few weeks, I have only gotten in about 5 workouts, purposefully. I wouldn’t say I need time off to heal or recover, but I honestly haven’t taken more than 10 days off of training in the last 10 years. I think it is good to take a period of time off and then get back at it!

As I am easing back into things, I have been doing A LOT of body weight exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups, directional lunges, and various other things for lower body. Body weight exercises have shown me that I am NOT very strong and where my WEAKNESSES are. For example, shoulders and upper back are certainly weak points for me.

I have been putting more work into exercises for core, shoulders, and upper back. I think this will pay off in the end and I will be much stronger than I have been! I am excited to get back at it and get beyond where I was before I took time off!

**In other news…I can’t tell everyone how excited I am that FOCUS FOOD is coming out in less than 2 WEEKS! I was a big fan of the Defranco Bar when it was out and GI Nutrition has come out with a BETTER version of it! Check it out for yourself…I personally guarantee you will not be disappointed. No more starbucks coffees, 5 hour energy drinks, red bulls, or other drinks/stimulants that are bad for you! FOCUS FOOD is far superior, check out the nutrition label!

Just wanted to start off by saying congrats to GI Nutrition athlete Nic Peterson, who recently competed in the World’s Strongest Athlete competition in the college division. From what I heard, he did a great job and repped GI well! I am sure he will be back next year so keep an eye out!

I also wanted to give a shout out to Mike Guadango for sharing his knowledge with me and helping me out with my own questions about training and nutrition. This kid is very smart about training and nutrition. You can tell his knowledge comes from real world experiences and time spent in  the gym.

To give my shoulders a break from the past few weeks, I decided to change things up for Max Effort Upper Body work. This is my own twist and I have used something similar a few times.

• Band + Dbell complex warmup
• Barbell Pushups with weighted SPARQ vest (29 lbs) (4 sets)
• Dbell Incline Bench Press (2 sets)
• Horizontal Cable Rows + Banded Face-pulls (4 sets)
• Banded Tricep Pushdowns (100 total reps)
• 2 scoops of Ideal Recovery

-PN

I worked in a repetition upper body day on Thursday morning.  It consisted of: Incline dbell press, wide grip horizontal rows + banded face pulls, and triangle push-ups.

Here is my work from today:

• 1.5 scoops of Ideal Pump + 30 grams dextrose
• NFL style dynamic warmup (25 yards)
• Box TKE’s
• Box Squats (working up to 405 lbs)
• Banded Good Mornings
• Defranco Barbell Complex “Finisher” (2 sets @ 115 lbs)
• 2 scoops of Ideal Recovery + 45 grams dextrose

-PN

I got in a repetition upper body workout on Sunday that included banded pull-ups, incline dbell bench, seated rows, and 25 deg incline skull crushers with a straight bar.

Here is my lower body dynamic work from today:

• 1.5 scoops of Ideal Pump + 30g Dextrose pre-workout
• Barbell complex warmup and some of the Agile 8
• Deadlifts (worked up to 275 with max reps)
• Bulgarian Split Squat (worked up to 50 lb dbells with max reps)
• Barbell Reverse Lunge
• 10 min Treadmill cool down (7 mins walking backwards)
• 2 scoops of Ideal Recovery + 45g Dextrose post-workout

Talk is cheap…videos coming soon to keep tabs on my progress!

-PN

M-E Lower Body:

• Barbell complex warmup
• Zercher squat
• Bulgarian split squat (worked up to 75 lb dbells)
• Reverse barbell lunge
• 10 mins treadmill (6 mins walking backwards)

-PN