250X9 is a Rep PR on Bench. Everything moved well. Crowded gym, so camera angle sucks.
More strict chin-up volume. Did sets before and after Deads. Thought I might do pull-downs after Deads, but decided to wait and see how a chin-only works with this volume approach. If things taper off, I'll try swapping out some medium rep pull-down volume.
350X5 is a Rep PR on Deadlift. Everything felt pretty good. RPE 9.5. Feels like I'm getting back in the swing of things again after the roller-coaster of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Wife's Birthday scheduled interruptions.
Solid session despite no PRs. 142.5X6 ties a Rep PR on Press.
For chins, I'm really trying to work my way back in with super strict technique. Today it was all about touching the bar at the top. I wanted to touch it to my chest, but that seemed impossible for some reason, so I settled for touching my neck. After three sets, I kept doing them between squat warm-ups to get the volume. Not sure what I'm doing with these right now, but I want to double-down on doing them strict whatever it's going to be. Need to get video to see why I'm not able to touch my chest.
On Squats, I focused a ton on a letting the bar settle before the rep but after my breath, and then on a very controlled descent. It took some mental adjustment to be this patient, but everything felt and looks pretty good.
Blah session. Super sporadic training schedule felt like it caught up with me a bit. Really need to get back on track.
202.5X9 is a Rep PR on Bench, though not surprising considering the run of 10 rep PR sessions leading up to it. On the 2nd work set, I felt that 10 probably wouldn't be there on the AMRAP set, and hoped to get 8. Glad I at least beat that.
I was supposed to start microloading chins today, but everything felt so off, I thought I'd just do BW sets...and didn't even get all of those. Blah.
Thought I might beat 6 on Deadlift, but I rushed a bit through the first 4 reps, and didn't have enough left in the tank to try and pull 7.
Coming back from a sporadic couple of weeks of training capped by a trip to New Orleans, I decided to pull back on most of my lifts. Backed Press and Squat up by two weeks, resetting the BW movements to be as strict as possible, and repeating the previous Deadlift weight.
140X7 is a Rep PR on Press. Definitely didn't expect that on the first day back. On the last few reps, I focused in on sort of "locking" my hips in place as the bar clears my head. Kind of creating a more stable pillar to finish the press out after the initial movement to get the bar from chest to the forehead.
For Chins, I'm looking now for full elbow extension, and a breathing pause at the bottom of each rep, and chin over the bar at the top. Reset to 3X5 at BW. I was nervous I wouldn't get them all, but I did. I've also built a calculator that will allow me to add ~2.5 to the TOTAL weight lifted after each time I get all 3X5. Basically I just plug in my body weight for that day, and it will tell me how much weight to add. I expect this to look a bit silly the first few times as I'll have a dip belt with a 2.5 hanging off of it. Third set shown.
After everything, I'm very happy with 3X5 on squats. I would have needed 8 for a Rep PR here, and that was unrealistic. Although this final set was probably RPE 8.5. I focused on letting the bar settle "back" on my shoulders after the breath. I'd noticed sometimes I would take the deep breath and immediately descend, and the bar was rolling forwards a bit. This seemed to help with that. Also continued to focus on a very controlled descent to make sure the bar path stays good. Again, felt very good about the results here. Keeping these points in mind for next week, I'm optimistic I'll feel good about getting some more reps in.
200X10 is a cool little Rep PR on Bench. Felt confident it would be there, and was probably RPE 8.5. Nice milestone I didn't even really know I was looking for.
Chin-Ups went okay. I'm going on a little trip this weekend, and I think I may reset chins and dips when I come back and try to get them all stricter. More on the dips below. Video is 2nd weighted set, and first BW set. Angle sucks, and was way off-center on the BW set.
345X6 is a Rep PR on Deadlift. Only needed 5 for a PR. About RPE 9. Felt pretty good today.
Dips were much harder today for some reason. I wish I'd gotten video, because I suspect I was going way deeper than usual. Shoulder may be in good shape for deeper dips now. I will take a little weight off, and reset using a plan I've been hatching for a chin-ups reset that takes total weight into account. Will be better about getting video, and holding myself to a stricter, fuller range of motion on both movements.
142.5X6 is a Rep PR on the Press. Felt pretty good I think. Tried to video it from the back to see if I could learn anything new from that angle, but the phone fell over.
231 (BW)X10 is a Rep PR on Chins. No video on this day.
355X7 is a Rep PR on Squat. Finally. It's taken me 4 weeks to dig myself out of the hole I found myself in after my Thanksgiving trip where I ended up not squatting for 3 weeks. 4 weeks to undo 3 weeks. What a pain in the ass. Anyway, things had started to feel better last week, and everything felt really good all through warm-ups on this day. The first set was hard in the usual way of a 3X5, 2nd set felt really good, and I was fired up for the last set. Also, the video of the first working sets showed a really solid bar path. Hopefully this is a sign of what the coming weeks will be like.
197.5X10 is a Rep PR on Bench. I was running out of gas a bit at the end, but strength-wise I think my short-term goal of 200X10 should be in reach.
228 (BW)X11 is a Rep PR on Chins. Not a cart-wheel situation as my chin form certainly isn't super strict. Something I'm pondering how I want to approach. For now, my non-strict form is still consistent, so I'm comfortable progressing it as-is. 2nd weighted set and BWX11 set shown.
335X6 is a Rep PR on Deadlifts. Would have like to have gone for 8 again, but was feeling pretty gassed on this day and decided to settle for the minimum PR.
258 (BW+30) X11 is a Rep PR on Dips. Getting pretty tough if I don't focus on breath quality and micro-breaks. 3rd set shown.
