Dubious Quality

There will be no Hulk Smash during this post. 

First off, I was surprised by how much I enjoy lifting weights again. I didn't do it for years because of a minor problem I have with my wrist, and weightlifting always seemed to make it worse. With this program and schedule, though, I don't have any problems. And (incredibly) I've gained significant muscle mass since I started (which was about nine months ago, I think). Almost ten percent on my bicep, and I'm too thin to put on muscle easily, so that's a huge gain for me. 

One of the most important parts of this program is the schedule: you only lift every fifth day. You lift to exhaustion, when you do lift, but you take three full days off before you lift again. This has made a huge difference. I've been almost uniformly healthy this time, and any minor things that do happen have plenty of time to heal. It's been great. 

It's is also not a big time commitment. It takes less than half an hour, and given that it's only every fourth day, it's easy to look forward to it instead of feeling like it's drudgery. 

There are only five exercises, and you do them with dumbbells. You do only one set, but you do it to exhaustion, so as many reps as you can until you can't do any more. 

Another nice element is that you can use the same weight dumbbell for all of these exercises and just adjust the number of reps. And in terms of reps, I'm using a light dumbbell (25 pounds) and performing a high number of reps (20-30, depending on the exercise) instead of trying to go with a heavier weight and fewer reps. It's not optimized for strength gain, necessarily, but the lighter weight makes it much less likely that I'll injure myself, I think. 

I do all these one arm at a time, with the exception of Seated Triceps Extensions, where you use both arms with the same dumbbell (which also means higher reps for this exercise than the others).

1. Seated Press 

2. Seated Triceps Extensions (you do this with one 

3. Biceps curls (seated or standing)

4. Bent over row (standing)

5. Bench press (seated)

There are a ton of videos available for each of these, so I'm not linking to any particular one. They're very basic exercises, and most of you are already familiar with them. 

They work, though, and it feels good.