Day 33:Shoulders & Abs

Neil “Yoda” Hill joins me in today’s training session in Columbus. Neil invented the Y3T training protocol, which stands for Yoda (Neil’s nickname), 3 weeks of training cycle, and training. The last time I worked shoulders with Neil I threw up in this gym in Columbus. Neil also has a shoulder injury—a supraspinatus issue and a lot of calcification. While we have different injuries, we’ll find a workout that allows us to work around them.

Perform machine shoulder presses through the middle of the range starting with your high-rep DTP scheme. Note that we used a Hammer Strength shoulder press machine with independent arms, requiring you to work equally hard with both sides, lifting the weight independently. Both types of machines are great, and you can use any other form of shoulder machine presses for this move, based on the equipment available in your gym.

Then for your second move, you’ll perform lateral raises. Start heavy with 15 reps and drop weight as you increase reps by 5 for each set that follows. Notice that when we’re doing side raises, we don’t pull up with our traps. Keep the work in the middle head of your delts.

For front raises, you’ll start light with high reps. Then for your rear-delt raises lie on an incline bench at about a 30-degree angle. This helps prevent swinging the weights, allowing you to directly target your rear delts, which are a weakness for many bodybuilders—both amateurs and pros. Reps start low with heavier weights.

You’ll finish up this workout with straight-leg lifts, going to failure for each of your five sets. Remember to keep rest between abs sets to only about 40–45 seconds.

Machine shoulder press Sets: 5 Reps: 35, 30, 25, 20, 15 Strategy: DTP
Dumbbell lateral raise Sets: 5 Reps: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 Strategy: DTP
Front raise Sets: 5 Reps: 35, 30, 25, 20, 15 Strategy: DTP
Bent-over rear delt raise Sets: 5 Reps: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 Strategy: DTP
Roman chair leg raise Sets: 5 Reps: Failure Strategy: Regular
HIIT Sets: 1 Reps: 3 Strategy: 4 minutes easy/1 minute full intensity for a total of 15 minutes

TIP

Just because I’m traveling, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take a break from any aspect of my training or my recovery. Make sure you pack all of your supplements and even foods that will help you stay on your program. I began packing my food and supplements two days before my trip. Recovery is even more crucial when you’re traveling because your body also undergoes additional stresses.