Saturday, January 15, 2011

Horse Power, Flys and the Gym

The set up:
Incline bench, the Smith Machine, two twenty five pound plates on a 15 pound bar.
The lifter lies on the incline bench with the bar resting on the upper chest, about 4 inches below the clavicle and presses the weight upward.
This is good for building chest muscles, the "pecs".
The routine:
Lifter begins:
1. 10 repetitions followed by 10 push ups.
2. Back on the machine-11 reps followed by 10 push ups
3. now 12 reps followed by 10 push ups
So it goes all the way to 20 reps followed by 10 push ups.
That equals 165 reps and 100 push ups; total amount of weight raised: 10,725 pounds.
If the weight travels 36 inches (the average arm length) the lifter is generating 32,175 foot pounds of work.
One horse power is equal to moving 32,580 pound one foot in one minute.
It took about ten minutes to complete the exercise so theoretically 0.1 horsepower was generated without taking into account the push ups.
Those were thrown in just to add hurt.
After this exercise we weren't offered any hay or oats, no sugar cube but went directly to the bench to finish with dumbbell "flys".
With all the horse power and the flys I felt like I should be in a stable but after that work out, I wasn't.
I was sore.
Then on day two the real soreness started.
I can honestly say even after five days I still feel like I should be put out to pasture.

No comments: