Wednesday, December 19, 2012

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 1. Bench

BW - 201

Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
115X15

Incline -
105X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

DB Flyes - 2 sets of 20

Rope Pushdowns - 4 sets of 20

80+% session.  Now that I'm past all the limiting symptoms of last weekend's head-cold, I felt like this session was a more realistic introduction to the new program than Saturday's plague-ridden squat session.

As promised, the introductory weights all felt light as hell, and I was able to focus on applying maximum explosiveness while also keeping my form tight.  This has been one of the biggest difficulties for me of late:  keeping my upper back tight while driving lighter weight to lock-out.  I find that high bar speeds tend to pull my shoulders apart at the top resulting in a loss of tightness for the following reps, and I'm trying to correct this problem.  There was progress on this today.

I would like to have gotten more than 15 reps with 115, but the bar was moving way slow and I was just out of gas.

I think this was an over-all volume PR for inclines, however.  Don't think I've gotten 5 full sets of 10 with 105 before.  As maximizing assistance volume is one of the top-tier goals for the introductory phase of the Strong-15, I'm pleased with this, and will continue to push it in coming weeks.

I haven't done DB flyes in...I don't know.  And I kind of remembered why.  In order to keep stress on the muscle, the range of motion is severely limited.  I double-checked the manual, and it just says "Flat Flyes," so I think I will switch to pec-deck.

It's also over a year since I did any kind of cable push-down, and these 4 sets of 20 really fried me.  I kept the weight light, and tried to focus on feeling the triceps pull and relax.

All in all, felt like a pretty good body-building session.  My first in I don't know how long.  I'm certainly reminded how boring aspects of training this way can be however, but maybe I can focus on adjusting my perspective in that regards.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just wondering what you plugged in for your goals on Squat/bench/deads and how they compare to what you were doing on 5/3/1. I will be starting the LRB 365 template (just finishing up 5/3/1) on 12/31 and most likely tracking my progress through a blog on here.

Keep up the good work!
Scott

Nealstar said...

Sure. I plugged in 290, 205, 380.

I love to mess around with formulas in Excel, and what I did was average my E1RM for each movement from each of the last 6 weeks of 5/3/1 to determine my "everyday max" and then shot for a 5% bump.

And that looks like this on bench for example:
7X150=180
6X160=190
5X170=195
9X155=195
6X165=195
1X185=190
That averages out to about 195, so I call that my Everyday Max, and then multiply that by 1.05 to get my goal of 205.