As those of you in the Team Immortal Facebook group know, I begun my Body Beast journey this week, perhaps not surprisingly I’ve decided on ‘Huge Beast’ rather than ‘Lean Beast’.
My first day of the programme was Monday 23rd July meaning, if I run to schedule, I will finish on 21st October. My aim for this workout, as you might expect, is to add lean muscle mass. The programme claims you can add 10lbs so that’s what I’m shooting for since his lines up with the key reason why I workout which is, as I get older, for as long as I possibly can, I want to get stronger. Whether it be lifting heavier, cycling or running further or walking longer I want to challenge the ageing process. My current age is 35.
Some facts and figures:
My starting weight is 12st 10lb (178lb)
Body Fat Percentage (according to warrior callipers) is 8.6%
Lean Body Mass = 162lb
I’ll be keeping a keen eye on these figures as I progress. I might even post some pictures at some point.
The first phase or block of Body Beast is Build. This is 3 weeks of 6 days on, 1 day off. Before receiving the programme I’d run through some of the workouts via worksheets in order to understand the progressions and movements and I’m glad I did because during the workout you get very little time to think.
So, by way of a quick catch up, here’s a quick synopsis of the two workouts I’ve done so far:
Build-Chest/Tris
This workout introduces what appears to be a recurring theme in the programme – Dynamic Set Training (trademarked by BeachBody) This involves a progression of single sets (4 regular sets of a compound move finishing with a drop set), supersets (2 exercises back to back, without rest, in this case using the same muscle group), giant sets (like a superset but with 3 exercises).
You work through the chest exercises, all the while warming up your triceps, then the last single set and super set are tricep focussed. By this point, they were toast and I got a terrific burn. It’s all polished off with a cheeky 60 second ab exercise.
This was a humbling experience, I haven’t had to do assisted push-ups in a long time but the decline push-ups and the tricep push-ups had me moving to my knees or shifting my weight back on the bench just to get through.
It’s hard to convey how intense this workout is, it’s relentless but all the while you’ve got Sagi on screen encouraging you and the big guys on screen are visibly struggling too. Performing this without the DVD prior to receiving the disks did nothing to prepare me for the pace of the thing. This a very well thought out workout which is demanding, challenging and good fun (who doesn’t like working out chest? 
Build Legs
This was another workout I’d had a crack at from the worksheets but I’d gotten a couple of the exercises wrong. There’s a Sagi invention (or so he claims) of a straight leg deadlift where you straddle an EZ bar, one foot in front of the other and front leg straight. You then lean forward controlling the bar down behind your front leg. I found this one a little unusual, I deliberately kept the weight light until I’d mastered the movement and it was difficult to ‘feel’ it but I’m sure in the next legs workout I’ll have it dialled in a little better
This workout had my heart beating hard and fast, it felt like a massive use of energy. The burn in the quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves was intense (I feel I’ll be using that word a lot in this blog). The best thing I can say about this workout is that, despite leg training days being my least favourite, I actually enjoyed this workout. Today, as I type, it hurts me to be sitting on this chair.
So in summary, I think this workout is going to take me to places I’ve never been before. I’m already itching to have a go at the block 2 Bulk workouts and I’m on my 3rd day! Patience, Daniel-san, today is Build Back/Bis.
Whatever it takes!
Ross
