Jason Blaha Powerbuilding Training Upper Body Day – 5-29-2025!

Today’s Training Session:
– Bench Press: 245 3×8
-Weighed Pull Ups: 25 3×8
-Weighted Dips: 45 3×8
-Barbell Row: 225 3×8
-Lying Triceps Extensions: 110 3×8
-Barbell Curl: 85 3×8
-Incline Curl: 33 3×8
-Incline Rear Delt Raise: 33 3×1
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Hey everybody, it’s Jason Blaha here once again. It is time for an upper body day. But a quick reminder, if you guys will please click like down below, I greatly appreciate it. If you are not uh subscribed or following, please do so. And if you guys will be kind enough to drop me a comment down below, I would greatly appreciate that. All right, guys. Today I reduced the bench weight just a little bit because mainly I want to be hitting a little higher reps. I want to be, you know, around eight. Uh some of my stuff will go up to 10, but most of my stuff today was eight or nine. Everything but the rear delt raises. And it’s only because I picked uh weights I could do around eight. And some of these I went ahead and got a ninth rep. So with the benching right now, and again I want to be clear, I am now really cutting. I’ve reduced calories a hair. I’ve upped the cardio even more. Um so we’re going to go ahead and cut cut. So in this case, no, I’m probably not going to gain any muscle. I’m going to try. So I’m going to push some of the training hard enough. I’m going to do the curls and the rear delts. Everything’s like, man, let’s see if we can gain any bicep. But the fact of the matter is I have to be realistic of I’m probably in a big enough deficit and we saw the first little whoosh finally. Uh I’m in a big enough deficit it may not be realistic to gain a single drop of muscle and we just have to accept that. Uh but I’m going to go ahead and lean out. So I need to be focused on my training preserving muscle. And I’ve had a lot of people ask me why are you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that? Because I literally need everything outside of my cardio to be stimulating muscle growth. Um I can’t even focus on max strength. I don’t want to do GBP. I need to make sure that I’m holding on to muscle because I’m probably going to start losing weight relatively quick with where my calories are, what I’m doing with the diet, the amount of cardio I’m doing. Um, I’m probably in at least 1,000 calorie deficit a day. So, again, I’ve got to watch this. So, I went ahead and I did sets of eight on the bench. Notice the bar slowed just a little bit. Now, does that mean I had a rep in the tank? Yeah, I absolutely had at least a rep in reserve. I could have probably pushed out 10 on the first set, but it did slow a little bit. Same thing on the pull-ups. Um maybe about one rep in reserve. So again, uh doing did super sets with weighted pull-ups and bench press. So again, three sets of each. Um right at eight reps. Um again, picking a weight. I probably had about one rep in reserve. Of course, on the on the dips on the last set, I went ahead and pushed out a ninth rep. So again, what I’m trying to do, I’m taking these four big exercises and then I’m just going to do enough isolation for everything to kind of hit the weak points a little bit. You know, I had that point out too. I’ve been saying, “Well, I’m only counting the dips and the um extensions toward my triceps.” And I’d say, “Yeah, but bench works the triceps. Why aren’t you counting it?” I’m like, “Uh, because I I don’t feel that I need to.” And it’s mainly for me. The bench doesn’t grow my triceps. I know guys who get big triceps from benching, by the way. All right. I don’t. Right. I really don’t. And this is mostly a chest exercise for me at this point. The way I’m performing it, look at where I’m at with the grip. Um, this is I feel nothing but pecs. Okay. I feel only pecs. The only thing I’m feeling my triceps on is the dips and the other stuff. But we’re also Yeah, we’re definitely getting some tricep stimulus from it. I’m even getting some long head probably from the pull-ups, right? Because we’re going into a dead hang. So, the pull-ups in this case, I’m trying to focus on getting a hang. So, a lot of the reps I’m coming to a stop. Uh, trying to at least It feels like a stop to me. Some of those are touch and go, but I literally feel like I’m pausing. So, it’s kind of funny, but at least we’re getting into my full range of motion, right? We’re trying to get into a stretch. Um, just just working those lats, right? So, what I’m doing here, yeah, I definitely want six sets for lats both days. And then, um, I’m double downing on the curls. So, I’m kind of like, let’s not even bother with chin-ups. Let’s not care about underhand stuff. I can just do two different curls to make sure the biceps get hit. Whereas in with the chest stuff here, obviously there’s going to be a fair amount of tricep because of the movements I’m picking. Like I I actually do feel a fair amount of triceps um on these dips. I definitely can feel them working. And they are we know dips build triceps. Uh but I’m going super deep trying to get that chest stretch. So I’m trying to take these all the way to my full range of motion. Some of them I pause at the bottom. Um so I’m doing like sets of eight there. And yeah, I know guys have seen me just stop at parallel and do 10 with with 90 pounds instead of 45, right? We’ve all seen that, but that’s equally hard there. So, it’s it’s equally challenging for me to go all the way down even with 45 pounds less on there. So, that’s why I’m doing it. So, I’m really thinking in terms of fatigue on this stuff. I’m trying to keep a lot of the forms a little stricter, do harder versions. So, I’m doing like 5 in deficit deadlifts. I’m going to be doing more again deeper pause squats. So, the idea here is I’ve got to be stimulating as much muscle growth as I can without beating my body up because I’ve got to be able to recover. Um, again, keeping the diet super clean, ultra high in vegetables and everything to keep me full, to keep the antioxidants high, keep oxidative stress down because again, the amount amount of cardio we’re doing, right? Doing all that list cardio. I did over four hours yesterday, by the way, and it was on camera between my different uh social medias. So, it’s all there. Uh, so that’s the idea, guys. I’m trying to to make sure I’m just holding on to muscle at this point. So, my training has to be geared towards holding on to every single drop of muscle. Um, you know, the only thing I’m I kind of realize I probably don’t need to even work on any delt work other than rear because the rear does hit the sides and I feel like my shoulders are getting a lot of work. Like look, see the shot there? Like my front delts and stuff are big. Really the rear delts need the most work along with, you know, just arms in general. But I don’t want to skip the back and the chest. I do want those movements, but they’re all compounds. So again, what I’m ending up with is I’m counting about 12 sets towards every muscle, right? About 12 barely hard sets if I don’t count the bench or the rows or the pull-ups towards arms. And people would argue they could, but I think in my case, given the fact that my arms have always been a little undertrained, probably not. But I’m making sure I am hitting those rear delts, which is still a side delt. Um, but I again I feel like my delts get so much carryover from all the other stuff. That one I can look at and go look at. It’s probably enough for now, right? Probably enough for now. Really, my delts aren’t going to pop till I get leaner. And I think just me doing the side delt work. Once I get leaner, my delts are probably going to pop all out. Everyone’s going to be like, “Oh my god, what’ you do for them?” Because I’ve done tons and tons and tons of delt work. It’s just still carrying too much body fat for it to really show. But I don’t pin my delts either. That’s a big problem in bodybuilding, right? So many guys just pin the hell out of their delts. I don’t I don’t pin my delts at all. So, um, again, same thing with the rows. I had been doing a little bit of the cheat rows. Now, I’m just going to go super super super strict strict as I can. So, I’m strapping for that, trying to get that stretch at the bottom. Notice a lot of those I’m bending down just to get the stretch. Uh, coming up, I bring it to my chest because we get better overall back development from doing that. And that’s the general idea here. That’s what we want to do, right? It’s what we want to do. Uh but again, my back is looking great. And as I get leaner, as I get leaner and leaner and leaner, because I’m seeing some of the footage, I’m not been throwing it up here with me without the belt on from the back. But I can see the difference. The lower back is slowly leaning out, right? It is starting to lean out. Um so that’s a good thing. I’m down a notch in the weight belt. But yeah, I probably need to take, you know, another another five, six inches off my waist and then we’ll be I think I think that’ll be where I need to be. Um, so again, the goal, let’s just go ahead and get good abs. Let’s just diet down. Let’s get leaner than I’ve ever been on camera. I got reasonably lean with some pretty good stuff doing those 198 meets, right? But I think we need to we need to go leaner than that. I need to go leaner than that. It’ be the best thing I could do just for all of my outreach, not just YouTube. People are always worried about YouTube, guys. The YouTube YouTube is a almost a dead platform to be fair. I’m gonna be honest. But my Facebook and other stuff and that’s really where it’s going to be worth all of it. Facebook, Instagram, everything. Um, so people kept worrying about the YouTube because everyone comments and the stuff they don’t realize I’m not concerned just with YouTube. I’m concerned with all my platforms. Um, and I mean it’s it’s just simply sells, right? It simply sells. And then I’ll just get crazy strong again once we get lean. But in the meantime, we hold on to it. So then for other stuff, I did obviously my extensions. I’m trying to pause a lot of these reps. I’m taking these as deep as I can take them, too. Right? So again, hammering that long head of the triceps. And then I decided to do straight bar curls here. I’m like, you know what? I’m going to keep the incline curls in, but it’s like I want a second curl. I love straight bar curls. I feel like they bring so much to the table. In this case, though, I’m like, I don’t think I need to always bring them up to the face. Everyone gets mad. They’re like, they hate my curls, but it’s technically correct. like we are working that long end where we’re like, “Okay, let’s just bring them up to where I keep my arms down.” Now, some people will know, but your elbows are flared out because I can’t put them down. That’s literally my lats in the way. My lats are too big. So, that’s like that’s as far as I can go. So, if you look here, that is as far down as my elbows can go. I can’t put them down further than this, guys. But, I am pinning them to my side. And and notice that I’m not really moving uh rotating the shoulder forward. So, this is just using my bicep, right? And there’s going to be a little bit of the elbow flared out because I can’t I can’t put them down further. Like, that’s the weight pulling me down to a hang there. That is actually under load for me to be there. And that’s just again my you guys see my back from the back. I can’t can’t put them down. So, that’s kind of funny. I’ve get people who will say that and I’m like, you guys are basically admitting that you don’t have lats. I have lats. Like, I can’t put them down. I literally can’t. It’s not a matter of of hey, just try harder. Well, it hurts. So, I have to exhale all my breath and squeeze and I can’t lift weights with no air in my lungs. So, you know, but yeah. So, the curls, same thing. Got right eight reps and then it’s right above. Those are pretty much failure actually. And what I mean by failure, I I it comes all the way down and then I can’t move a ninth rep. No, that’s muscle failure. The extension, same thing. These are these are right at eight and they’re maybe a rep in reserve. Some of them I don’t feel like I have a rep in reserve. Like I’m pausing on that last rep and then a form degrades. So again, yeah, I’m just taking the curls up. So just moving the elbow through its full range of motion instead of bringing it all the way to my face and getting the extension. Look, let’s just do them this way for a little bit. It’s fine. I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong on that. I do like the other because of maybe the the long head, but I could try these for a little bit again and see how it how it goes, right? Might as well. No big deal. We can rotate stuff around a little bit. Uh but again, obviously I want to keep the incline curls in. So then the final exercises, I went ahead and did my incline curls and I picked up a rep on these. So I’ve been getting eights doing these with this. Um but I managed to pick up a rep today. So that’s actually good. The very last set I’m squeezed down to ninth rep. So I’ll take it. So I did these superseted with the rear delt raises. Um because those rear delt raises on that 45 do work the side delt really hard. I think people forget that. They’re thinking uh it’s a rear delt exercise. No, it definitely us hits the side delts very very hard when you do that also. So, it really is both. Even though we would think of the rear delt raises a side as a rear delt, it always works the side delts no matter how you do it. All the studies, it lights it up. But in this case, because I’m at a 45, it’s probably a nice balance of both. It’s probably an even mix of those two heads. And that’s really where I need the most shoulder work. So, let’s come in and isolate it. I don’t feel like just coming in and overtraining my shoulders. I’ve been doing more, but it’s just like I don’t want to overtrain anything. I’ve got to watch that. No point in just beating my shoulders into the ground. Let’s just give them some good stimulus. Even if it’s only six direct sets a week, but I’m doing 12 sets of pushing and 12 sets of pulling is working the rear and the side and everything with some splashover. That’s going to be enough. But I do feel like the biceps, I could make the same argument for them. Three sets of curls would be enough. I’m I’m really worried that it’s not just because for me historically uh always undertrained the biceps. They always lagged a little because of that. So let’s just go ahead double down on it. So biceps will be one of the muscles I go ahead and make sure we do 12 sets of isolation a week. It probably be the only thing only thing we’re going to isolate that much obviously. Uh but the triceps I’m sure I can make the case for that but I’m doing so much tricep work already and then adding those those laying extensions in. That’s that’s a fair amount of volume. If we don’t count the bench press, we still have 12 sets because no one’s going to argue that deep dips are not a major tricep exercise. Nobody’s going to argue that. I don’t think that’s reasonable. So, again, we finished up with all the incline curls and then the u the rear delt raises on the incline bench. So, overall though, um been was pretty happy with today’s performance. Everything felt good. I don’t feel exhausted. I don’t feel fatigued today. So, that’s a good thing. Um, in spite of all the cardio I did yesterday, um, I got enough carbs after that I feel good. I feel like I’m recovering. The performance was good. Some of my exercises picked up a rep here or there in spite of a pretty big deficit, but I’ve also got my carbs really, really high. I’m also sleeping a lot. So, again, as long as we keep everything balanced, we’re going to just try to stick through. And I mean, performance may suffer as I continue to get leaner. We drop 15 more pounds. Yeah, sure it might start. But we’ll see where it goes. But we’ve got to just stick it out. So, I hope it’s been informative and I’ll talk to you guys and gals next time.