Reps and Volume. Week 2. Bench

BW - 197

Bench -
BarX20
95X5
115X4
135X3
155X2
135X15, 8, 4

CG Bench - 135X3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5

Incline (45 deg.)-
115X8
95X12, 8

Rear Delt Machine -
X20, 20, 20, 20, 17 (ascending weight)
X30 (back-off)

Hammer Curls - 30sX18, 14, 11

Shoulder is getting really angry again, really quickly.  I'm going to try alternating flat bench with OHP week-to-week.  And probably start looking at some PT.

Despite that, I still made a good jump in reps on my first set from last week, and also managed to meet my volume goal in only 2 sets.  I threw a 3rd set in to ice the cake (and maybe that kind of behaviour contributes to my shoulder problems).

On close-grips I bumped the reps on the 2nd to last set up to 5.  This might be a fun way to go: seeing if I can add reps/set starting with the last set and moving backwards every session.

I was at my 'away' gym, and their incline benches are more standard incline so I tried upping the weight on the first set, but that was not awesome.  Backed off for the next two, and that was fine.

This gym has a really nice dedicated rear delt machine like this one.  The chest pad is at a good height, and instead of grabbing handles, it's got roller pads at elbow distance.  So you're only using your upper arms on the moment and there's not stress from the elbow to the hands.  Really easy to feel the muscles back there and focus on making them work with this one.  Also, last week my shoulder started bothering me on the reverse flye, but there was zero pain in my shoulder with this one.  Maybe because the lower arm being free allows the shoulder to rotate during the movement instead of locking it into a fixed plane of motion?

Upped weight on hammer curls.  That's really the body just getting accustomed to the programming, I think.