GymSamurai: Personal Fitness Challenge Day 15 - Arms

"Hard work is a two-way street. You get back exactly what you put in."

Body weight: 252.8lbs (-1.2lbs)
Calories burned: 3987
Calories eaten: 3652 (234g protein, 276g carb, 163g fat)
Steps taken: 6279
Workout duration: 45 min
Weight lifted: 9,489lbs

Arm Day hype! Had a great arm workout today, with a huge pump that lasted about an hour after I stopped lifting. FeelsGoodMan

Arms

Barbell curl - 70x12/10, 60x8
DB Hammer curl - 50x10, 40x10, 30x14
Incline DB curl - 30x8/8/8

Rope pushdown - 77x12/10, 66x7
Overhead rope extension - 33x10, 27.5x9, 22x10
Close grip bench - 45x20/20/15

Man, the higher rep ranges really flushed my arms and gave me a huge pump. At the end of the session, I could neither touch my shoulders or straighten my arms without effort. I'm not lean enough to see much in the way of upper arm vascularity, but I felt totally swole nonetheless.

I made sure to eat a lot today - if you've been following my routine you may notice that I upped my calories by almost 1000 and ate 100g more carbs than usual. It made such a huge difference in my energy levels, and I'm sure the extra carbs contributed to the pump too. I still managed to eat fewer calories than I burned, but both my burn rate and intake are up, and the extra food makes a difference.

One of the advantages of embracing a high calorie day after several days of lower intake is that the body just sucks up the extra nutrients and replenishes its stores. I still managed a small calorie deficit, which is likely limiting my muscle growth, but I suspect I will be eating more than usual next week so we shall see how I feel after that. The psychological relief of a day of eating whatever I wanted is a great break from the daily discipline and allows me to continue maintaining a pretty strict dietary regimen the rest of the time. We need the breaks emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Recovery time is a super important part of any training regimen. Depending on your age and condition, it can be even more important than the training itself. If you can't recover, you can't improve, and you'll end up in a downward spiral both psychologically and physically. Take some time off, give yourself a break, and then get back to it! Pausing is fine, stopping is not. :)

Rest day tomorrow! I have a busy day ahead, but I will post an example of what my day's diet typically looks like - time permitting.

Stay Strong, Steemians! :)

Feel free to read my original post about the why and how I'm doing this challenge: GymSamurai: One Year Birthday Fitness Challenge Begins, view all my GymSamurai posts from the last week at https://steemit.com/created/gymsamurai, or view my feed at @imagin8orr for my other posts. Thanks!