Chest & Back Totally GYM Modified, First Attempt

First off it has been a very busy weekend, no time for much as such I did not have time to research some things I wanted to research before today and at the same time I did not have time to take my stats, such as weight and measurements, I know it does not take to much time, but I also forgot as I have been mentally occupied. Hopefully I will have some stats for tomorrow.

Well today I decided while I was at work and had a couple of minutes of free time to figure out what I was going to do in order to modify chest & back to mostly use GYM equipment, this was my first experimentation and it seemed to go pretty good, but as I go I will tweak it to see how I can maximize the exercises.

I did the warm up mostly by memory, I know I had to warm up and stretch my shoulders, back and chest mostly, so I did a combination of the warm ups I have done before. I also decided to leave some of the exercises as is for warm up purposes and because I wanted the best of both worlds, meaning I also did push ups and did pull ups.

So here are the changes I made:

1. Standard Push Ups:
• These I left the same, I used helix dumbbells in order to maximize the range of motion and made sure to do them slow and steady to get a nice pump. Also figured it would be great to leave alone as push ups tend to also stretch the muscles, which is good to promote growth.
2. Wide Front Pull Up:
• These I also left the same as I wanted yet again to make sure I kept doing pull ups.
3. Military Push Ups:
• Here is where the change begins, I use a bench press for this one. I weighed the bar and it weighed 41lbs. Also in one of my researches I learned that when doing push ups you make your chest push about 60% of your body weight. I weigh 157 and 60% of that is 94.2lbs. I added two plates of 25lbs to make the bar 91lbs as a first attempt and to be safe. I was able to bench press it 10 times and still felt I could go for more, therefore the second time around I added two more plates of 5lbs, this made the bar 101lbs and this made a difference, I was able to do 6reps.
• This is the bench I used:It is quite nice as it has safety hooks, if you can’t lift it all the way, no need to worry you can still place the bar half way or at a low level and can do this with out someone spotting you. I did this alone today, I was a bit worried that I may need someone to spot me, but at the same time the large handle like sections would catch the bar if I failed to even lift it a little.
4. Reverse Grip Chin Ups:
• For this I used the Lat Pull Down. I set it to 150lbs, but it seemed a bit to heavy, I did 3 reps like that so I brought it down to 120lbs and was able to do 10 reps, still playing around with this one.
• This is the machine I used for replacement of both pull ups and Heavy Pants (which I will talk about later). 
5. Wide Fly Push Ups:
• For this I did Dumbbell Flies, I used 27lb dumbbells @ 10 reps each.
• The second time around I decided to try Pec/Rear Delt Fly combo machine:It worked out pretty good, I used 65lbs as this would simulate 32.5lbs dumbbells. I may increase the weight next time.
6. Closed Grip Over Hand Pull Ups:
• Again I used the Lat Pull Down machine for this, still set at 120lbs.
7. Decline Push Ups:
• For this I did decline dumbbell presses, I used 27lb dumbbells for this, why so low, well when your arms are wide open it makes a huge different in weight.
8. Heavy Pants:
• Here as mentioned before I used the Low Row. I set it to 90lbs as this would simulates dumbbells of 45lbs.
9. Diamond Push Ups:
• These I left as is.
10. Lawnmowers:
• These I also left the same.
11. Dive Bomber Push Ups
• Again left the same.
12. Back Flies:
• I started the first round as normal and then I used the same machine as above, that I used for wide fly. It actually seemed pretty cool to use as back fly and I seem to have felt it a bit more.

I will say it was pretty cool, it was nice to use free weights for sure, also the act of balancing the bar is usually a very good thing for the muscles, however as mentioned before this is not the end result for me, I am in an experimental phase, and I will continue to tweak this or modify it as I see fit, I may remove something and add something else. What I am looking for is to keep the muscle confusion and keep trying to work the same muscle groups as in the P90X. Having said that, I never really hit the GYM before so seriously before for me to know more about the GYM equipment, therefore I still require to do more research, but I am sure I will find something that will suit me for a Chest & Back routine.

Once I did this, I also did Ab Ripper X by memory, not hard to do after doing it 3 times a week for 6 months LOL. It felt awesome, I had not done it in a week, I hit it hard and made 1 modification. What was it? Mason Twist, I always wondered what it would be like to use some sort of weight when doing mason twist, I had a 4K (8.8lbs) Medicine Ball next to me and I picked it up and used it to touch the floor on each side, man oh man if your doing P90X you need to try this, it makes a huge difference and it felt so good.

Tomorrow I have cardio, I may just use the treadmill and run, but on cardio days I may do different things plus I will be bringing some P90X cardios like Plyo back as this is a definite asset to have.

Thank you for your time and don’t forget to keep coming back to see how I continue to work on modifying P90X for the GYM:

Mike