Dumb Bell Destroyer

Yer Grinch has been getting a lot of questions the past few months about what sorta exercise he's been doing. Been thinking about writing a bit about what I've learned over the past three years, since I took that long look in the mirror and decided I wasn't gonna be buried in an XXL coffin.... and I will knock something together on the grounds that I've learned a lot about what's doable, and might be able to offer some practical tips about exercise and good eating. But in the interim my exercise routine is pretty simple. I get to the gym usually three times a week for about 90 min and I play hockey every Tuesday night. At the gym I stick to the dumb bells almost exclusively because they sorta force you to focus on good posture and technique; if you're lazy and/or unfocused lifting DBs you're going to get hurt. I split the focus of my days between Shoulder/Back/Chest and Biceps/Triceps/Legs and try and spring the time to do at least 20 minutes of intense cardio to end each session; usually sprint intervals, one-min at 80% max and two-mins at a fast walk. Because time is an issue for me I Superset my DB exercises. Simply put, Supersets combine several lift sets working similar muscles (though not always the case) with zero rest. For example I might do 12 reps Standing DB Curls & 15 reps Incline Hammer Curls, rest of 90 secs and repeat for three reps and then move immediately to a triceps Superset and so on. I've tweaked the approach a bit by adding a third element to the SS. Depending on my mood it'll either be a core or abdominal element like planks or crunches, or something from my off-day routine; if I'm working arms I'll add a shoulder/chest/back set. I can get through four sets of three exercises in an hour and if I'm doing it right I'm completely wasted by the end, heart in the 125-135 bpm range before getting on the treadmill. Recently I came across a DB combo I like a lot: I've tweaked this as well, replacing a couple of the 14 exercises, adding to the number of repetitions, increasing the mix of weight a bit etc. It's kinda fun once you get into it. There's now 15 different exercises which I do without a break - the whole cycle takes about 20 minutes to complete - and then take a two/three min breather between each of three reps. This is my Saturday afternoon routine; it clears the residual booze vapors very efficiently and forces my lungs to manage the ten+ cigarettes I smoked the night before. A bit of well-deserved punishment for the night's excesses. The results since I started have been very noticeable (and in one regard unwelcome!); I'd sorta plateaued at 88kg but five weeks after adding this new component I've put on at least 1.5kg of muscle. Nice I guess but not really what I'm going for as I try and track down to my goal coffin weight in the low 80s.