I live by the numbers: Compound Exercises

In my previous post I wrote about my body weight, muscle weight and fat % goals. Today I will write about my weight training goals, in particular about my compound exercise goals. If I have to choose the 5 best exercises I would choose the following exercises and in that order

Squats
Deadlifts
Bench Press
Pull ups
Overhead Press

It is very easy to understand why I like them. These are the exercises where I can lift heavy. Heavy like lifting close to or more than your body weight. Lifting so much weight simply means one thing, those exercise require more number of muscles and also mostly bigger muscles. One cannot bicep curl one's body weight. The muscle is way too small and no other big muscles are involved. Also the distance these weights are moved is big. Work done is weight times the displacement. So you do more work moving the weights to a longer distance. Engaging more muscles means more hormone response, more repair and more muscles!

Now back to my goals. On October 1, 2009 this is what I could lift in my first work set

Squats: 150 lbs, 10 reps
Deadlifts: 170 lbs, 10 reps
Bench Press: 90 lbs, 10 reps
Pull ups: Body Weight + 15 lb, 10 reps
Overhead Press: 60 lb, 10 reps

And this is my goal by the end of December 2009

Squats: 185 lbs, 8 reps
Deadlifts: 200 lbs, 8 reps
Bench Press: 120 lbs, 8 reps
Pull ups: Body Weight + 25 lbs, 8 reps
Overhead Press: 85 lbs, 8 reps

Let us see if I can reach my goals. I am confident that I can.

Comments

Stats for Oct 2009

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Finally broke 130 lbs

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Skinny to Strong

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