WFH: Back & Chest (and even some legs)

Lactic Acid Bath is the name of a New River Gorge sport route that was famous in the early 90s. But you don’t have to travel for such an experience. Just train your chest and back, in a volume workout, on the same day. Toss in a few sets for your other big muscle group and you’ve got a veritable pukefest in waiting.

Day 2: A step down in focus from day one but every bit as painful. Working two large muscle groups together is brutal, and today we throw in a third.

The Warm-Up

Because such light weight is being used I do not warm-up thoroughly. I generally do a bit of easy movement, some ballistic stretches, and then practice each movement to determine the weight I’m going to use, doing about 10 reps.

Back
3 sets of 30 reps for 4 different exercises. 1 minute rest between sets.
Wide late pull-downs
Seated rows
Pronation pull-ups – done on rings
One arm rows

2 minute break

Chest
3 sets of 30 reps for 4 different exercises. 1 minute rest between sets.

Dips – I can’t do 30 dips so I’ve rigged a way to do dips from my knees.
Cable Flys – I use a band
Wide fingertip push-ups – These are fairly climbing specific. I’m on my knees and they still hurt at this point.
Diamond push-ups – I do these from Tony Horton power stands, on my knees, and at this point in the workout I’m dying from about rep 10 on.

Note: I try and hold a long stretch between each set. Bodybuilders claim this stretches out the fascia and will lead to more hypertrophy. At a minimum it counteracts all the muscle contraction by forcing the actin and myosin strands of your muscle cells apart.

Legs
I can’t do much for my legs right now because I can’t bend at the waist under duress. If I could I may change the schedule because I’m dying on the little that I’m doing.

Wall Squat – One set to shakiness with my low back flat on the wall. I will probably increase this to two and then three sets but it’s vital at this point not to put too much strain in the low back area.
One leg calf raises – 3 sets, each from a different angle: toe in, toe out, and neutral. This is somewhat climbing specific.
Tibialis Anterior exercise – I set to failure of form. I consider this a stabilizer exercise but do it here because it feels right. Back flat against a wall, feet about a foot’s length in front, raise the toes. Should be able to do 40-50 easily.

Core
Again, I’m limited what I can do so I train core two days in a row. Today is easier.

Bridge – one set until form start to go- at least 2 minutes today, which doubles when you haven't done the above workout.
Plank – on elbows, back flat, to failure of form. 2 minutes or so at this point in the workout.This is a far cry from what I do when healthy but the point is back rehab right now.

pic: from the back in the day files, me climbing in mexico, sometime during the 90s.