Chin-Ups - Density Block; 7 minutes; BW; 5 reps on 1st set; 30 total reps
Conditioning - HIIT; Stationary Bike; 7 rounds
Solid session.
Even though Bench hasn't made an e1RM jump over the last 3 sessions, everything felt much better today. Inter-set fatigue seemed lower, the weights sort of..."handled" easier despite the RPE being comparable, and my head felt clearer throughout.
Got a few more reps on Chins again this session which was a bit of a surprise.
Solid sessions. Definitely feel about 95% back from being sick the last couple of weeks.
Squats definitely felt heavy heading into the top set, but the increase in e1RM over last week is about on the average for the last 5 blocks. I've been tracking week-to-week increases to see if I could reliably predict which weeks would have larger increases during a training block (an old Paul Carter idea). That kind of seems to be getting blown out of the water, but we'll give it a few more blocks.
High bars felt very good.
BG Deadlift also felt very good, although I was kind of ready for the session to be over at this point. I think I've let my conditioning work wane a bit the past couple of weeks, and it may be impacting my resistance training. I'll try to be better about logging the conditioning, and see if that helps with accountability.
Rough couple of week of training ended with a mixed bag session. Illness and poor recovery made these last couple of cycles a bit of a roller-coaster. This week looks to be a bit chaotic as well, so I'm going to stay buckled in.
Deadlift went very well this session and was clearly the best main lift of the week. DL is now pushing up against my e1RM from when injuries side-tracked me to the point that I switched over to RPE based programming back in the fall of '18. It's been a long slog back up the hill. I hope I've learned some things.
Pause Squats ended up being the same weight as last week. Not great, but not terrible. Comp Squats have been very rough the last couple of cycles, so maintaining on the supplement is probably a new win.
Comp bench was really rough this week, and getting RPE dialed-in on Axle Bench was very difficult in this session. Overall, it ended up being about the same as last week. Probably fine.
Chin-Ups - Density Block, 7 minutes; 28 total reps
Not a great session. My low back started bothering me as I was walking into the gym. Low level, but enough to feel it during the bench set up and somewhat throughout the reps. No real change to top set strength. I misloaded the back-off set, and that wasn't great. Once I got it adjusted, it was still pretty heavy and regressed quickly.
Things were a little bit better on cambered bar bench, but still a regression from last week.
Got a couple more reps on chins, but it feels more like gaming the system than an actual increase in strength.
Okay session. The last several blocks, I've had a good-sized jump in Squat strength in the 3rd and/or 4th week. Was hoping for that jump today, especially since I was fighting a cold during last week's lackluster Squat session, but it wasn't really to be. Nevertheless, I was able to put a smidge more weight on the bar at the target RPE, so it's still progress.
I am reminded that I backed-down Squat volume a bit this block to facilitate raising DL volume. Something to think on.
High-Bars were fine though.
BGDL was also solid. Interestingly, it's curving towards the same % relative to comp DL as my data on Deficits off of a plate. Not sure how to factor the straps into that.
Solid session in general. DL is getting in that range where it feels heavy regardless, and I have to prepare for that when I step up for the first rep. "It Will Feel Slow; Pull Hard."
My formula said 260 for pause squat on this day which I though was a pretty big jump considering the previous session topped out at 240 @7.5, but 260 ended up being the right number. I think I was uncertain because my comp squat performance dropped off really quickly last week, and I wasn't sure where my overall squat strength was going to be; especially following DL. Glad it worked out.
Axle bench "felt" a lot heavier in my hands this week even though the RPE was on target. Interesting.
Chin-Ups Density Block - BW; 7 Minutes; 26 total reps
Solid block. Surprised to run into Leah Lutz and Jordan Feigenbaum from the Barbell Medicine team. They're doing a seminar in the area and decided to hit my gym. Nice to meet them face-to-face.
Bench went well. 3% increase over last week. Everything felt good.
Cambered Bar Bench had an even bigger jump. Also felt good.
Got 7 more reps in my chin-up density block. Some of that may be down to time-management lessons-learned from last session. I always hit a wall at some point with progressing chin-up training. We'll see how it goes!
Head cold is still lingering and I think it was messing with me during this session.
Top double on Squat went really well, but the back-off volume was WAY harder than it should have been. I think I was just running out of gas. Even when I backed the weight down it still seemed like I was about to hit a wall.
Proactively pulled the high bar intensity back, and ended up being at the same weight as last week.
I did manage to bounce back and hit the wide grip DL right on target. Hope the other sessions this week go a bit better.
Was a little all over the place hitting RPE targets on the lower body lifts today, but still a fairly solid session. I'm writing this a few days after the fact and having been sick all weekend, so my impressions of the lower body lifts are also fairly fuzzy.
I guess the top double on DL could have gone up like 5 lbs. to hit the @9 target, but knowing I was going to be squatting right after, I didn't want to push it. Likewise the back-off sets could have gone up 5-7 lbs to try and hit @8, but I'm always conservative on DL day.
By the end of the Pause Squat sets, I did try to push the weight up a little bit closer to the RPE target.
First time doing Axle Bench. Decided to add it in after talking to a guy at the gym that was using it quite a bit. He suggested a 10% offset and that ended up being right on the money. Potentially a very useful supplement in that regard, as it seem highly specific to the comp bench with the set-up being entirely identical (grip-width, ROM, etc.), but the thicker grip seeming to necessitate a drop in absolute intensity. Looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
Chin-Ups - Density Block - 7 minutes; 12 sets; 19 total reps
Solid start to upper-body lifting on the new block. Bench ended up coming in a solid 5 lbs. ahead of expectations for the top double. So that's now Squat and Bench that have started the block strong. Fingers crossed for DL on Friday.
Cambered bar bench felt great. I haven't trained that movement since 2014 so, ya know...PR or whatever. The % of comp bench came in right about where I expected. Nice to see that may be well dialed in.
Chin-ups. "Hello, Darkness, my old friend." Gonna try density training this time around. We'll see how it goes.
Squats came in feeling MUCH stronger than expected. First cycle squats have been ~93% of the previous cycles e1RM. That had me expecting ~342.5 for the top double. The warm-up sets of 6 @6 and @7 ended up going 8-10 lb.s heavier than expected, and I ended up hitting just over 95% for the top double. Back-off sets of and High Bar sets were likewise strong. All in all a great start to squatting this cycle.
BGDL also ended up blowing past expectations. Based on my one previous cycle with this movement, I expected 65% of prior block's DL e1RM. Ended up hitting 88%. Upon further consideration, I don't believe I used straps last time on this movement, and was overloading grip. I also have adjusted my DL stance since then to get "a little more leg" into the start. Anyway, I was actually fairly tired when I got to these and it was super frustrating that I kept having to add weight to get to target RPE, lol. I want to go @8 on these, but by the time I loaded 285, I just wanted to be done.
Push-Ups on DBs - BWX11, 10, 7 @8/10
super-set with
BB Curls - 55X10, 10, 7 @8/10
Last session of the Pivot. Felt bone tired walking into the session, and was afraid I was getting sick. Started feeling better during the DLs, and was okay by the end. Skipped conditioning.
Expected DB Push-Ups to have been easier. Maybe just novelty.
Went a little over on temp bench just to get a plate per side. No big.
Going to be doing Chin-Up density work next block, so I came up with the idea to do my ab work with a bent-arm hang. The hang was harder than the ab work, but it's also a pivot block so whatevs.
