Block cut short by upcoming travel. Honestly, ready for the break. Had a lot of late nights this week, and recovery was definitely way off. Made lifting more of a chore than usual.
Deadlift top single in particular was harder than I wanted it to be. A reduction in e1RM from last cycle. Back-off sets felt fine, though.
Front Squats and dips felt pretty good as well. Dips in particular felt very smooth.
Video is of top sets and final work sets. Didn't get video of the top set of dips.
Because this training block is getting cut short by travel, I had my eye on coming in and shooting for a big Bench PR of 275. However, it wasn't going to be there. I pushed the warm-ups and the top single trying to make it happen; telling myself, "maybe you've been sandbagging your RPE," but the 252.5 was @9 at best. And the back-off sets quickly escalated in difficulty. Of course, I'd only gotten 5-6 hours of sleep the night before, so I wasn't in the best recovery space. This was by far my worst week 4 bench results over the last 3 training blocks. I really think it would have bounced back next week with good recovery.
Oh, well. Something to look forward to next block. My bench has been starting new blocks around 92% of the previous block e1RM, and my lifts have been increasing by an average of about 2% per cycle over the last 3 blocks. That would put me right around 273 at the end of the next block. However, it's a higher intensity Transmutation block, and last transmutation block my results were a bit better than these averages.
I hit 50 total reps with the 55s last week on DB Bench, so I upped it to the 60s this week per the 350 Method. Felt a little harder than I expected, and I think that's a little bit of extra fatigue from pushing the bench a bit harder. Doesn't really matter as this block is over anyway.
Inverted rows actually felt really good. I think I'm more acclimated to this version of the movement, plus I came in at a slightly lower BW than the last couple of cycles.
Tougher session. Probably pushed the squats a little harder than I should have. The last two blocks I had about a 5% jump in Cycle 4, and I was trying to will that to happen here. It clearly wasn't in the cards, but I then tried to force a 10 lb. jump, and ended up overshooting a bit on my singles. I brought it back in line for the back-off sets, and they felt about right.
Rack Chins dropped off a bit, but I was also "holding the squeeze" pretty hard at the top of each rep.
I was pretty wiped by the time I got to Sumos, but they actually had a bit of a larger jump than last week. I just really had to will my focus.
I'm traveling next week for work and vacation, and I've decided not to try and shoehorn any training into that trip, so I will be cutting this block short after this cycle. Would have been interesting to see where it went, though. Lots of intriguing things happening.
Good session. Since I adjusted my DL stance, it continues to proceed nicely. Throws a wrench in data collection over the last several blocks, but who cares?
I have had some nagging right glute/high hamstring discomfort on-and-off this calendar year, and it's starting to rear it's head again, but it actually hasn't interfered with training yet, and hopefully that trend continues.
Hoped to get 160X7@7 on Fronts, but that was gonna be a touch too heavy. All good. 157.5 was actually what the math expected, but I find that I like to walk in the gym expecting to add 10 lbs. week-over-week, and have the mathematical projection be more of my floor.
RPE on Dips continues to be a bit trickier to predict than other lifts, but this is still right around the weight I was shooting for.
One thing I'm finding with all my supplemental and accessory lifts is that if the RPE prescription is different from the main/first lift, I have to keep that in mind otherwise I want to go to the main lift RPE. On Dips in particular, since the back-off set is targeting RPE 8, and the Deadlifts had been RPE 8, I kept thinking my top set was supposed to be RPE 8, and I overshoot my warm-ups.
Bench moved really well. Had to dial-in hard on pacing for the back-off sets of 9, but the top single felt very good. Targeted a 5% increase in eRM over last week, and hit it.
Hit 50 total reps with the 55s on DB Bench. Per the 350 method, I go up to the 60s next week. Nice!
Inverted Rows were fine.
Video of Bench top set and final back-off, and 21 rep set on DBs.
What an adventure. I ended up looking at last week's programmed DL numbers instead of my squat numbers. Didn't realize it until have my last warm-up set of 9. But that set felt @7 so....I went with it. Top set ended up being a touch heavier than I wanted, so probably should have been closer to my original target of 345. Still I decided to push the back-off sets up by 5 lbs., and that worked out okay...although it might have negatively impacted my sumos later in the session.
Interestingly, this is the third block in a row of having a big jump on squats in cycle 3 and/or 4. Interested to see what happens next week.
Rack chins took a little step back with the increase in BW. Need to get that increase under better control.
Sumo were actually a little weaker than last week. 285 was supposed to be my last warm-up, but was clearly @7+ so I stayed there. As I mentioned above, I suspect going a little harder on Squats earlier in the session may have contributed.
Good session. Nice to pull 365 off the floor again. It's been over 6 months. Because of that, the weight feels heavy in my hands, but objectively, I think it's good. Deadlift is just flying since I made an adjustment to move my feet back a bit and get more knee extension off the floor. At some point, I assume that adjustment will adapt out, and we'll see where it goes from there.
Front Squats felt good.
Miscalculated my jumps early on Dips and ended up doing an extra set or two. This was nice in a way, because the first set or two of Dips always kind of feel like shit. Here, after the +10 set everything was feeling really good.
Squats came in a little under target, and chin strength was fairly level. I think my stance was a bit wide on Squats. Sumo feels like it's going to march, though.
Not sure entirely what happened here. I moved my feet back an inch or so on my deadlift set-up and ended up with my biggest DL in 6 months...at the beginning of a new training block. So you could say it's the stance adjustment. I also pulled Sumo for the first time ever earlier in this cycle. When that came in at 112% of my Training Max (TM), I just assumed that I might be better at Sumo because I'm a good squatter. But now my conventional pull comes in at 115% of my TM, but also with a slightly altered stance so....
I don't know. We'll see. I also got confused a bit by working on a bar pre-loaded with 100 lb. plates, and got it in my head that my back-off sets were supposed to be @7 rather than @8. So I did less volume on the warm-ups, and less intensity on the back-offs. Interested to see how it goes this week.
Front squats came in about where expected 53-58% of squat. Movement felt very comfortable even though I haven't done them in a long time. I think I'm just better at being "in my body" on squats than I've ever been. How to move so that the fleet stay flat and the bar path stays fairly vertical. Also, didn't have much trouble with the cross-arm rack position, but as weight increases, I expect the pressure on my chest to get uncomfortable like it has in the past.
Dips also came in about on target. Expected 240-ish for the top-set weight, and ~15 reps for the back-offs. Satisfied with where these are starting out.
