JB

For the first time in years I'm actually genuinely excited by the prospect of a Villa game. For the first time in equally as long I'll be making a concerted effort to sit down and watch it with a couple of beers (glory hunter obvs). However, years of supporting us has made me expect to be disappointed, either by us being shit and getting hammered or by us fighting bravely but not taking our chances and being cruelly denied! Here's hoping I'm wrong. UTV.

While he probably is on the juice, Triple H started being trained by Joe Defranco a couple of years ago, who is awesome.

Awesome back session tonight. Focused on vertical pulls and rear delts. Will do a more row-y session with my chest later in the week. 1 Wide/neutral grip pull-ups +15kg - 5x5 2A Lat pulldown 82.5kg x 11,11,10,10 2B Standing high row 50kg x 12,12,12,12 (Triple dropset after final set of each) 3A DB shrugs (5 second holds) 50kg x 8,8,8,8 3B Reverse flyes 20kg x 15,15,15,15 3C Reverse fly hold 12.5kg x 30 secs Finished off with a bit of cheeky biceps similar to what I posted a day or two ago.

Yeah, I regret it. Just round the corner from my house, too. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I trained in Esporta/Virgin Active in Wimbledon. It was convenient for work (at first) and pretty much the only place I could find with relatively heavy weight.

I lived in Putney actually and checked out Physical Culture when I first moved there. Not sure if they've upgraded things since but I thought it was just too small and there was barely enough room for one person to dead lift at a time.

Since moving to a more hardcore gym where the weights go much higher and I've seen what other guys are lifting..... Is this a hardcore gym in London? Sadly not. Had to move away. To bloody Cardiff. Struggled to find hardcore places in London but they do exist. Somewhere.

I've copied the sixth and final phase of the advanced GVT routine (and some thoughts on the program) below. I've put it in spoiler tags to save anyone who can't be arsed scrolling through it!

I honestly think that a lot of it is to do with your training environment. When I used to train at a commercial gym in London, I thought I was the world's strongest man, even though I'd rarely press the 50s and hadn't dead lifted 200, just because of the other people training there. Since moving to a more hardcore gym where the weights go much higher and I've seen what other guys are lifting and how hard they train, it's spurred me on I guess. And I suppose I've just learnt more about getting stronger, too. That said, I still can't say where DB press strength has come from. I didn't consciously work at it. One day everything just felt too light and I just kept ramping the weight. I started pressing on the GVT at 47.5kg. I finished it last week and happy to post my final phase log if anyone is interested.

I went off sweet potato for ages but have been enjoying it mashed with a bit of feta crumbled over it lately. Good old white potatoes are king for me though. So much nicer.

Shoulders and triceps can end up taking a disproportionate amount of the load during barbell bench. DBs go a long way towards correcting this. Machines are even better apparently...

Haha no that's fair enough. Next time there's someone I know in the gym when I'm pressing, I'll get them to take a video or picture of me doing the 65s.

Pullovers with 40kg is pretty strong though. DBs in my gym go up to 70kg. Gives you something to aim for. I pressed them for 3 (I think) once when my brother was down, just so someone was there to make sure I didn't die! Not sure what happens with my DB bench... I don't work particularly hard on it. I just seem freakishly suited to it.

Flat pressed the 65kg DBs for the last phase of my GVT routine last week - getting them into position was a workout in itself! Dead lifting them off the floor wasn't too bad but getting them in front of my legs before I sat down was a killer!

I read a good article by John Meadows where he recommended the cross body hammer curl as the best exercise for building the brachialis. Since then, I've alternated them with reverse curls each week (supersetting them with other biceps work) and found them excellent. I tend to do straight hammer curls on an incline bench. A great little biceps routine, using agonist supersets is this: 1A Standing EZ curl x 6-8 1B Standing cross body hammer curls/reverse EZ curls x 12-15 3-4 sets 2A Incline curls (palms supinated throughout) x 8-10 2B Incline hammer curls x 10-12 3 sets Do that once a week and boom.

You'll be tacking on mass in no time [emoji6]. Standard and hammer curls isolate different parts of the bicep. Standard supinated isolate the biceps brachii, whereas the hammers target the brachioradialis. I bet you were dying to know that.

Try the dead-stop raises. Fairly certain you'll love them. Really feel them in the shoulder with the trap taken out of the movement. I have a love hate relationship with glute ham raises. Dread doing them but love the feeling after.

There are not many exercises potentially more injurious than the dynamic lateral raise generally favoured by the bros (aka clearings in the woods) in the gym, whereby they pretty much throw the weight up to their sides at pace, with an accompanying forward lean. It should be done slowly. It is not an explosive movement. An excellent variation is what's called the dead stop lateral raise. Basically sit in the middle of a flat bench so that the two ends are either side of you. Start with the (light) dumbbells raised out to your sides with straight arms. Lower them until they come to rest against the bench. Your hands and the DBs should be at least 4inches away from your body. This is your starting position. From there, raise the DBs out to your sides and lower them until they come to rest against the bench again and repeat for reps. This takes the momentum out of the movement and the gap between your hands and body takes the traps out of the equation. Lots of people tend to be trap-dominant on lateral raises, which can cause problems. Leading with your pinky finger is good, too.

Question here for Professor JB and Stevo. I have always done shoulders (usually some form of shoulder press) on the same day as chest, my reasoning being that both are involving the triceps. I then alternate with back and arms, and a leg days to make up the week. Has never been a problem but recently I developed a bit of niggler in the front of my left shoulder which is taking ages to go away. I'm wondering if its because I'm doing shoulders on the wrong day. Trouble is the shoulder is so connected that if you really think about it there seems to be no right way to do it in terms of working out every(week)day and not hitting the same areas on consecutive days. For instance if I switched up and did more of a routine like the one above (Stevo) then arent you effectively working out your biceps on Day 2 (various rows and lat pulldown) and then Day 3 (biceps curls etc)? This is a really common problem. There is no such thing as a "wrong" day. However, you may have seen me banging on about balancing push/pull movements before. My guess (and it's nothing more than an educated guess) is that your routine may be a bit push-heavy. Try balancing this out with some properly executed, high volume upper back/rear-delt work, maybe as an antagonistic superset, e.g. 1A Incline bench press x 6 1B Face pulls/band pull-aparts x 15 I always do a set of pull-aparts after any heavy benching. This approach worked wonders for me when my shoulders were flaring up. Touch wood I haven't had any problems since. The shoulder is extremely complex and very easily injured, commonly from overuse. Too much pressing on one day is going to take its toll. I'm speaking anecdotally here so take this advice as you will but I don't do much direct shoulder work anymore and if anything they've grown. I usually just do some form of lateral raise and rear delt work and leave it at that. I've just started doing explosive snatch-grip (lol) barbell high pulls too, which are great.

So many variables that it's almost impossible to say. I find that it's generally easier not to get bogged down thinking about how many calories you're burning. It can over-complicate things and lead to paralysis by analysis (if that makes sense?). Rather, I'd just focus on how many calories I'm taking in and the intensity of my training. Then monitor and adjust accordingly.

God Will Hunting: Arrogant high school janitor thinks he's better than everyone else. Starts a cult.

The Hrt Locker. Feature-length adaptation of Loose Women. Menopausal women chat shit for 90 minutes.

The first season of Eastbound and Down is as close to comedy perfection as I think I've ever seen. The drop in quality of the subsequent seasons was stark, though... they were patchy at best. Seemed like they started trying too hard to be shocking. Stevie became incredibly unfunny and annoying. Interesting. I personally thought season two was funnier than the first. Season three was a bit disappointing, but it's still funny. The differing opinions are indeed interesting! I can rewatch season one again and again and it's still hilarious. The bit where he jizzes his pants... I remember watching the first episode of season 2 with some mates and we didn't laugh once. It was actually pretty grim, which I think was probably the intention. The first episode of season 3 was great but that went down hill fast - the Ashley Schaeffer episodes were woeful (Will Ferrell is hilarious in the first season, though). And the final season was equally hit and miss. Mainly miss.

The first season of Eastbound and Down is as close to comedy perfection as I think I've ever seen. The drop in quality of the subsequent seasons was stark, though... they were patchy at best. Seemed like they started trying too hard to be shocking. Stevie became incredibly unfunny and annoying.

I haven't watched it a great deal recently but Bray Wyatt is awesome. From what I hear they've **** things up with him a bit over the past year though.

Too many finishers look like they don't even hurt these days. Cena's in particular is a joke. Then you have guys kicking out of flying DDTs...