UB: Strong Week 5. Press

Defranco Shoulder Mobility

Machine Lateral Neck Flexion - 20X20X3 each side

Press -
BarX12
70X5
80X5
90X5
105X5
115X5

BB Upright-Rows - 105X10, 5

DB Laterals - 35sX8, 5

Defranco-style Core circuit - 45lb. plate X2 (spread-eagle sit-ups, crunches, crunches w/ feet up)

Treadmill - 5 min. walk, 5 min. jog

I switched neck work to lateral flexion starting today.  Paul Carter down-played my notion that neck work could contribute to any of the big lifts saying it's just in the program because it's cool to have a big neck.  Nevertheless, I did some digging on exrx.net and it looks like the muscles responsible for lateral neck flexion play a bit of a role in the deadlift; at least more than the other neck muscles are involved in any of the other big lifts, so I might as well work on those if I'm gonna do neck work.

Pressing felt Hea.  Vy.  3 times I've lifted the equivalent of this weight or more in the Press, but I gotta say that I'm nervous I may miss my goal next week.  Maybe not though.  I know I've strained more to make this lift before, so hopefully I can gut out my little 5lb. 5 Rep PR next week.  Similar to my last Squat sessions, I may reduce the total weight of the warm-up sets to save more for the top set next week.

I've gone back and looked at my logs to try and figure out differences between when the press felt strong and when it felt weak like it kind of does now.  Of course there can be lots of factors that effect things, and I don't track diet and weight as closely as a lot of folks do, so I could be missing something there.  But the biggest difference I can see in the logs, is dropping overhead triceps work.  I've been relying on pressing movements and dips for triceps work for a couple of months now, and the press has felt heavier and heavier.  Back when it was shooting up and feeling strong, I was doing a lot of overhead BB extensions.  Hope this is a light-bulb moment.

Upright row PR.  Still raising and lowering the weight under control and only to my sternum.

Lateral raise PR?  Is that a thing to track, lol?  The important thing is that I lifted more weight and/or got more reps under control here.

I did a Defranco-style core circuit with a 45 lb. plate.  I've linked a video above so you can see what I mean when I say "crunches" with a plate.  A little bit different than what immediately comes to mind.

10 minutes on the treadmill.  Booyah.