Doing Cable Curls is tough work. It is a good pre-exhaust exercise or it is a good finishing exercise, it just depends on the order that you do things on a given day. I like to attack my biceps with Cable Curls first. I start very light and do a set of 20 reps. Then, I increase the weight by a single plate in the stack and repeat. I continue to do sets of 12-20 until I can do no more. I try to do each set slowly smoothly to keep the biceps under constant tension. I then move onto the next Biceps exercise and complete my biceps training for the day.
But more than the biceps exercises themselves is my attitude…..I have to turn up the intensity even before I start my training. I have to be determined to finish what I started and to go beyond my own expectations with each set and sometimes with each rep.
Attitude is everything when we train. I like to think that my training involves me against the weights. I have to approach my training with an expectation that there is nothing that I am about to try that I cannot do. I attack each rep and set in a way that pushes my brain to ask more of my body. The “more” consists of more intensity, more reps, more sets, heavier weight, shorter rest periods between sets. I try to vary each of these demands as I go along to enhance the effort and ultimately the results of my training.
Eventually, I can see my goal and how my effort is carrying me to it. As I begin to realize the date of my contest I turn up the effort, the focus, the energy, the precision that is demanded of an athlete preparing to compete. Nothing is left to chance.
I consider my time in the gym as a place to wage war on the many hurdles, obstacles, distractions, that keep me from being my best. Dick Butkus, (#51) All Pro and probably the best Middle Linebacker to ever play the position once said as he stood at the 50 yard line of Soldier Field in Chicago, “This is my church. This is where I make my living. So, I figure this is no place to make friends.” He is so right. When I am in the hunt to win I spend very little time socializing in the gym. My blinders are firmly in place and I avoid eye contact with other people in order to discourage temptation to stop training and talk. I stay the course and I put forth herculean effort to get better,
Bodybuilding is a war. The gym is the battlefield. When we set foot in the gym there is a palpable transformation that occurs. I check my best self at the door and I go about the business of preparing to win.
In closing, note that the Cable Curls video above demonstrates the type and level of work required to get better. The philosophy is that we treat the sport and especially our time in the gym like we were at war. Winning takes far more than wishful thinking. We have to be better and there is no shortcut to the winners podium.
Until next time, I remain, Douglas E. Graham, Lt Col, USAF, (ret), MHSM
Six Pack and Senior 