May 4th was Day 2 and although it would have been great to have hit the ground running on the first of the month, as always, you need to be able to adapt to any situation. You need to be able to bring intensity to the field… no matter what.

Thursday’s element is typically Metal, and today was no different. The concept is to harden the body like steel by building the muscles in areas that are your most vulnerable. This includes the upper body, more than anything else, so today’s focus was on forging my chest and back like they’re a shield.

The training session was a little less than an hour long and heavy weights were never used. There was no rest in between sets and we started with some cardio to spike our heart rate and make it easier to keep it high throughout the workout.

Here’s an idea what the training session looked like:

4 x 17 cal Row/10 Pushups (Rowed on a Concept 2 @8)

(All of the following were supersets of anywhere from 4-8 sets, with higher rep ranges and lighter weight)

Bent Under Rows x Incline Pushups (145 lbs)

Bench Press x Pullups (185 lbs)

Kroc Rows x Pushups (70 lb dumbbells)

Incline Chest Press x Inverted Rows (50 lbs)

Close Grip Pulldown x Incline Bench Press (Full stack)

Dips x Pullups

Obviously, there were a lot of larger movements for the chest and back, but we made sure to follow every set with bodyweight exercises.

I’m not sure if I’d rather write these the night of or the morning after, but it’s a long road ahead so we’ll figure that out. Today, we’re aiming to train at night, which can be a challenge after a long day at work, but you can’t let anything get in your way.

As for the Featured Image for the post… it means nothing. People will assume that someone is healthy because they look fit. They’ll assume you’re fit because you look fit. That isn’t the case and all that matters is what you know. I don’t care about my appearance… I judge progress by my performance.

And for the record, the medical scale placed me right at 200 lbs post workout. I haven’t been eating enough.