Word to the wise: When starting diminishing sets, pull it back a notch, or two. You’ll be very grateful that you did. Trust me. I thought I was going to go in there that first night and pound out my 70 reps in at least 6 sets or less with the same weights I’ve been doing for about 3 weeks now… No. It wasn’t happening.

Right away I could see how DS would be great for sculpting and defining that body for comps, but at the same time too, I could see the benefits of doing a few rounds of DS if you’re more “function over form”. You can definitely build your strength up pretty quick getting a few 8 week rounds of these in.

Because of my job and the tasks I need to do for it, I knew it was a wise decision for me to split set the night. I didn’t just focus on specific body areas, I did upper/lower/core in a sort of “super set” style. I felt that old familiar burn that I haven’t had since I stopped training for comps last May. I was hooked immediately. The next  day I carried around that “Hurt so good” feeling, and I won’t like my body felt amazing on top of it.

Day 2 of the new DS split set… was a mistake. I did another SS round, focusing on the opposite of what I did the previous round at the gym, walked out of the gym feeling great, then we were slammed with an inch shy of 3 feet of snow. Now, this is Maine, and we do get blistered with snow like crazy every winter. But, we’ve had it pretty easy for 2 winters now. You kind of start to slack off.

Luckily, we have a plow truck. It didn’t mean we didn’t have to shovel those narrow passageways or break out and muscle around a huge snow blower to cut a path for my dog. By Sunday morning, the thought of moving made me want to die. I could feel each oblique muscle bleeding tears out when I laughed, they and my abdominal muscles spasmed like they were being stabbed with forks when I coughed. And when I sneezed? I did my best to wrap my arms around my middle to keep everything from moving, because sneezing was scary stuff.

But no pain, no gain. I won’t be in the gym tonight because I won’t get the chance to step away from my desk today and I have coverage in the southern part of the state (and my gym has pretty lame hours). I’ll be bright eyed and bushy tailed Tuesday though. My legs, arms and back are still strong, and recover quickly. My poor core needs a vacation though.