5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 2. Week 1. Bench

LRB Diet - Day 4

BW - 199

Hypers - 5 sets of 20

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95, 125, 145X5

Bench -
BarX10
85, 105, 120X5
135X8

Chin-ups - BWX5, 12, 6, 4, 3

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 30-40

Solid 80% session.  Pause squats were supposed to be 120 and 140 on the top sets, but I didn't see any trouble with going the extra 2.5 lbs. considering I'm looking to jump to Tier 2 next cycle where the top set is 205.  These all felt smooth and explosive.  In some ways, pause squats feel more "natural" to me right now than full squats, but I'm sure a lot of that can be chalked up to the lighter weights.

Bench felt really solid, but I didn't set a rep goal for myself and 135X8 turns out to project as the lowest 1RM I've registered in 6 months.  Again the set felt solid, and the reps all felt smooth down and up, even with the new pause at the chest.

On the other hand, a BW 199X12 on chins is a 4 month PR.  While they don't seem to be coming on as strong with the weight loss as dips are, it's nice to see they're not regressing.  During this diet phase I'm hoping to hang my weight room morale on dips and chins as they should appear to maintain or improve their rep ranges as BW decreases.