Week 7 Day 1 - 840 Reps Later...

11/05/15 Day 43 – Legs & Calves

Today marks 2 things, the beginning of Week 7 and thus DTP Extreme Training, but also it is my 21^st Birthday today, so celebrating all weekend has lead to possibly one of if not the HARDEST training session of my life.

DTP stands for Dramatic Transformation Protocol and it draws from a Extreme version of pyramid training, there will be a shed load of reps and sets. You will discover a whole new meaning of the word volume. Lets see what my Birthday training looked like:

Leg Press – 6 Sets, 1 x 30,25,20,15,10,5

Leg Press – 6 Sets, 1 x 5,10,15,20,25,30

(For each rep performed 1 sec rest is awarded, 5 reps = 5 sec rest)

Leg Extension – 6 Sets, 1 x 30,25,20,15,10,5

SuperSet

Lay Leg Curl – 6 Sets, 1 x 30,25,20,15,10,5

Leg Extension – 6 Sets, 1 x 5,10,15,20,25,30

(For each rep performed 1 sec rest is awarded, 5 reps = 5 sec rest)

Laying Leg Curl – 6 Sets, 1 x 5,10,15,20,25,30

(For each rep performed 1 sec rest is awarded, 5 reps = 5 sec rest)

Seated Calf Raises – 6 Sets, 1 x 30,25,20,15,10,5

Seated Calf Raises – 6 Sets, 1 x 5,10,15,20,25,30

Cardio – Interval Training 15mins Total

Starting today's with a really solid warm up was key, I knew that the session was going to be stupidly difficult so mental preparation was paramount. With several minutes on the bike it was time to crack on with stretching and some mobility work, when hitting such high volume you must,must,must warm up for a good amount of time otherwise you will tighten up to fast and render that whole session worthless.

After jumping on the Leg Press it became very apparent very quickly that this was going to be a very Extreme session. With two sets in (30 reps & 25 reps) my legs had already become fully swollen, with around a minute rest between each of the first 6 sets meant that going heavy was a easy possibility. Building the weight up with every sets merely helps to pre fatigue the muscle before getting into the “Extreme” portion of the exercise. For the next 6 sets the weight would be kept on whatever weight was used to do 20 reps in the previous sets, then I had to perform 5 reps, 10 reps, 15,20, etc. up to 30 reps. The number of reps I performed was the amount of time I was aloud to rest, 5 reps = 5 secs, 10 reps = 10 secs and we did this all the way up to 30 reps! Needless to say I was on the verge of crying through these 6 sets. If you want a challenge, you need to try this out.

We then moved from the Leg Press to a wonderful superset using both the Leg Extension & the Lay Leg Curl. Using the exact same method here as the last exercise we built up the weights as the rep range dropped. With the legs so heavily fatigued just adjusting the machine was a struggle enough let alone trying to actually do something, so I was not looking to achieve any personal bests here, but instead simply work my way through these sets, in wait for the horrendous pyramid sets to follow. Thankfully with these exercises we didn't have to superset them on the 2^nd lot of sets and work through the 5,10,15,20,25 and 30 reps on each machine separately. With such short rest periods between sets my legs were screaming at me for most of the session, I got used to the fact that it felt like my legs were on fire for the majority of the time, but what was really hard was how the muscles took such a beating, by the final few sets the muscles just didn't have the energy to contract fully. It was a very strange feeling having your legs just give up on you in such a way, but it certainly let me know they were being worked.

To finish off the lower body we used the Seated Calf Raise machine, using the same principle as the last 2 exercises we built up our weights through our first 6 sets, which by this point was so difficult. Even though it was a fresh muscle group our bodies just couldn't handle to beating it had taken, so we (my partner and I) had to try our best to encourage the other person one, counting out every rep and every rest interval allowed us to just get on with the actual exercise. As we got onto the final 6 pyramid sets it almost became a case of stretching in between every set, the calves as a muscle group for me like to tighten incredibly quickly and almost get a burning fizz running through them for the session, which really isn't ideal, so stretch and make the most of it!

I hope everyone has had an awesome weekend! I certainly have. Lots of new comics to wear and a bunch of new gym vests to show off to you guys!

Happy Lifting,

Matt