[Sam Horwell]

I’m confused Sam, you spoke about moving to a full body?

How has this been going? Are you progressing?

I’m now curious what stimulated your thinking to shift to a full body, as this is two stages on?

Yes, sorry I should have been more clear – this is my current split and its going okay and progressing but i feel like moving to a full body split would see more returns is how I should have phrased the original post.. would having higher frequency throughout the week be better served or does my current split look okay if I’m progressing and I shouldn’t worry too much on changing plans?

[Sam Horwell]

Atm I’m running 4x per week
Pull
Smith Row x 3
Sa Reverse h/s pull down x 3
Sa h/s row x 2
Neutral cable Row x 3
Reverse pec dec x 3
Cable curl
(face stack) x 3
(Face away) x 2

Push (chest focused)
Pec dec x 3
Seated h/s chest press x 2
Cybex incline Chest press x 3
Machine Lateral raises x 3
Cybex shoulder press x 2
D handle push down x 3
O/h tricep ex x 3

Legs
Adductor x 3
Lying curl x 3
Sl quad Ex x 3
H/s leg press x 2
Seated ham curl x 2

Delts & arms
Lying Y raise x 3
High Incline Smith x 3
Flat chest press x 2
SA cuffed lateral x 2
Dual d handle push down x 3
Dual d handle curl x 3
Across face tricep x 2
Sa preacher curl x 2

Pull, push, rest, legs, delts & arms, rest, rest

My main focus is upper body at the minute, what would you change/adjust?

[Sam Horwell]

How comes you want to focus on your triceps?
I think you’re overthinking it personally as the more you grow overal the bigger your frame will get thus making your triceps bigger anyway..

I’d focus more on bringing up larger body parts first focusing more on legs, chest & back and then worrying about bringing up arms later as you don’t want to waste too much time focusing on such a small muscle group when your entire frame needs bringing up

[Sam Horwell]

Sas advice here is good. I would 100% be inclined to back off and listen to what you are feeling because your body (chest) is telling you something is quite right. Always worth while getting a second opinion also from a specialist such as a physio too. All the best with this man, definitely don’t over do it

Thanks Marc, appreciate the input brother 👍

[Sam Horwell]

So this is how my left peck felt just before I tore it last week. I so strongly suggest you back off, get some deep tissue on it, multiple sessions if you can. Get stretching it every day till that tightness / spasms stop. I didn’t do any of this line an idiot and now for a grade 1 year.

Doesn’t mean don’t train but cut down you load, lift like 20-30% of your usual work loads. No intensity sets. Stop before failure. Do this for a few weeks.

Thank you bud, will listen to this advice as really don’t want to tear anything

[Sam Horwell]

Morning weight 204.6lbs

Leg day;
Squat shoes for compound movements for max quad activation.

Lying ham curl – 3 x 15-10
– 58.5kg x 13
– 58.5kg x 12
– 58.5kg x 10

H/s leg press (4count eccentrics) – 2 x 12-9
– 260kg x 11
– 260kg x 10

Seated ham curl – 2 x 15-10
– 68kg x 13
– 68kg x 12

Smith squat (4 count eccentric) – 1 x 10-15
– 80kg x 12

SL quad extension – 2 x 15-10 last set drop set x 2
– 40kg x 10
– 35kg x 12, 30kg x 5, 25kg x 4

Adductor – 1 x 20-25 RP set
– 67.5kg x 12, 5, 4

Legs are fried, found this level of volume nice. Legs aren’t a focus point at the moment and anymore compound work just seems to bury me

[Sam Horwell]

Morning weight – 204.4lbs

Push day

H/S Pec dec – 2 x 15-10

– 77.5kg x 13

– 77.5kg x 11

Low incline smith machine – 1 x 7-10, 1 x 11-15

– 81.5kg x 8 (+0.5kg, +1rep)

– 66.5kg x 12 (+0.5kg, matched)

Cybex chest press – 1 x 7-10, 1 x 11-15

– 77kg x 8 (+0.5kg, matched)

– 59kg x 13 (+0.5kg, matched)

Seated dips – 2 x 12-8

– 100kg x 11

– 100kg x 10

Machine lateral raise – 3 x 15-10

– 25kg x 13

– 25kg x 11

– 25kg x 9

SA D handle pushdown – 3 x 15-10

– 30 x 13 (heavier cable stack as usual stack was occupied)

– 40 x 12 (back on usual cable stack)

– 40 x 10

SA cuffed o/h extension – 2 x 15-10

– 35 x 9 (felt very heavy this rotation, triceps felt fried getting short)

– 30 x 12

Good session, progressed all movements besides overhead extensions, not sure why they felt extremely heavy this rotation, will monitor next push session next week.

[Sam Horwell]

35 min fasted cardio followed by 3 sets of abs, stretching, and posing

Got me a little upper pump today! It’s been a long time and I thought it was looking a little skinny lol

Plate loaded incline chest press

2 sets 12-10

Incline cable fly

2 sets 15-12

Lying cable cuff laterals

3 sets 15-12

Smith shoulder press

2 sets 10-8

Tricep overhead extension

2 sets 15-12

Single arm preacher curl

2 sets 10-8

With regards to “10-8” rep range does this mean set 1 you aim for higher and then set 2 you keep weight but just let the reps fall off?

[Sam Horwell]

I like to train 4 days per week and upper body is primarily my focus at the moment..

My current split is

Back & Bicep (1ham movement)
Chest & tricep
Rest
Legs (1 lat movement)
Delts & arms
Rest
Rest

Although you could have a rest day inbetween legs & delts & arms instead of 2 consecutive rest days

[Sam Horwell]

Rest day yesterday and had a few drinks and off plan meal out with my partner for some downtime.

Another rest day together again today and some downtime before back in for pull & hams tomorrow.

[Sam Horwell]

My first guess would be the tren even at that dose – it started when you added it in and it is a known effect from the drug.

If its distributing sleep then potentially pull the tren out and see if it goes away. – would be by first port of call

Thanks Peter, will give it a go as it’s happened again last night.. waking up drenched.. mainly legs

[Sam Horwell]

As Kiera says, fluctuating or declining estrogen levels can cause night sweats, so a blood test might be in order.

Yep, think I crashed my E2 during a gyno flare up.. ran nolva & arimidex for 4 weeks, cleared up the sensitive nipples but has destroyed my libido, joints & General mood.. find myself feeling a bit low/down and irritable a lot more.. slowly feeling like I’m coming back to normality tbh as i felt “different” 2 days back and felt like that sense of depression was clearing up, hadn’t had a clear head for the last few weeks and it’s been horrible

[Sam Horwell]

Could be a sign of estrogen imbalance, do you have any symptoms of estrogen being high or low? Mainly low

I potentially think I crashed my E2.. I was having high E2 sides gyno flare up mainly and ended up running nolva everyday for 4 weeks and arimidex 0.5mg 2x per week also.. it cleared up the sensitive nipples but also left me feeling a bit depressed day to day & sore joints, also sleeping is crap if thats a sign of low estro.. slowly becoming more normal since stopping the use of nolva/armidex about 3 weeks back but the low mood swings arent fun.. might look into getting a blood test to see where I’m at now

[Sam Horwell]

Training day

Morning weight – 201.6lbs

Sleep – Okay, still waking up pretty frequently throughout the night but not feeling too tired throughout the day, especially after a midday power nap.

Session – Delts and arms;

Reverse pec dec

– 54kg x 15 (Had the set up wrong annoyingly)

– 54kg x 18, 7, 6 RP

Cybex High incline smith #5

– 90kg x 6

– 70kg x 11

Cybex Close grip smith tricep focused

– 70kg x 7

Machine laterals

– 15kg P/S x 8 (1count hold in contraction)

– 15kg P/S x 8 & 1/2 (no count in contraction)

SA Cuffed lateral raise (hip height, lengthened focused)

– 25 x 13

– 25 x 12

Dual D handle pushdown (gym pin attachment)

– 85 x 13

– 85 x 10

Dual D handle cable curl (Gym pin attachment)

– 85 x 12

– 85 x 10

SA Cuffed overhead extension

– 35 x 12

– 35 x 10

Seated incline DB curl (lengthened focus) – first time running this movement pattern

– 7.5kg x 15 (too light, will go 10kg next time)

– 10kg x 11

Overall session felt great, had an excellent pump throughout and really engaged with each muscle when going through the workout.

Made a huge difference starting on Reverse pec-dec then going into a shoulder focused press, made my shoulders feel secure and safe. Always hated putting reverse pecdec after back training as could never fully engage my rear delts, love starting with it.

will look to add 0.25kg per side for the compounds and hopefully match reps next time.

going to keep the session at 3 sets of compound work for the next rotation, almost done a back off on the close grip smith press but honestly looking back over the workout there wasn’t a need for it yet so im happy i didnt.

2 x consecutive rest days coming up this weekend, really looking forward to not going to the gym on the weekend as I have and spending some time with my girlfriend, going for dinner Saturday and not going to worry about tracking for the day but just going to ensure protein is hit.

[Sam Horwell]

Personally I like to deadstop on my second chest movement..

So usually I’ll do a low incline chest press and spend time coming out of the lengthened.

2nd excersise I’ll usually deadstop to keep it standardised and feel more powerful.

I call it “gentle deadstopping” as you control it into a stop then engage your muscle to pull it out of the deadstop.

I think aslong as you aren’t neglecting spending some time in the stretch throughout your excersise selection it shouldn’t be an issue as you don’t want to tear something up one day because your muscles aren’t used to the change of direction by being in that stretch and have always relied on a “deadstop” to change the line of force.