Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 4. Session C.

sRPE @7.5

BW - 216.5

Squat -

390X1 @8.5

330X4 @6.5

325X4, 4 @6/7

315X4 @6

Dips - BW+30X8, 10 @7/10

Pull-Downs - X12, 12, 12 @6/8

DB Press - 50sX10, 8 @8/9.5

Squat was maybe a bit down from last week.  As I was adding volume on the back-off sets, I tried to make sure RPE stayed in the pocket, and wasn't hesitant to take weight off the bar to make that happen.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 4. Session B.

sRPE @7

BW - 220

Press - 

120X6 @~10

110X7, 7, 7 @8

Chin-Ups - BWX6 @8

Toes-to-Bar - BWX4@8

Hanging-Leg Raise - BWX11 @8

BB Rows - 150X10, 10, 10 @~8

Woof.  Really bad day for the Press.

Got to jawing with some folks at the gym and forgot to do Density chins.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 4. Session A.

sRPE @7

BW - 217

BB Curls -

80X10, 10 @8.5/9

75X10 @8

Bench - 

212.5X3 @7.5

177.5X7 @6

Gaspari Bar OH Raise - 50X9 @10

Deadlift -

430X1 @8

365X4, 4, 4, 4 @6/6.5

80 for 2X10 is a Volume PR on Curls.  Backed off for the last set.

Bench was meh.  Set of 7 better than set of 3.  I backed off weight on the overhead raises, too.  I also realized I'd been doing kind of a pronated grip, elbows out thing on those, and what I want is more of a neutral grip elbows in to more closely mimic the motion the upper arm goes through on Press. I think that's the way I did them previously, and when I switched half way through this set, everything felt better.

430X1 ties my previous PR on DL.  And only half way through the block.  Exciting.

This is kind of funny but 365 for 2X4, 3X3, and 4X1 are all Volume PRs on DL.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 3. Session C.

sRPE @7

BW - 218

Squat - 

385X1 @8

325X4, 4, 4 @6/7

Dips - BW+27.5X8, 10 @7/10

Pull-Downs - X12, 12, 12 @6/7.5

DB Press - 48.75sX10, 9 @8/10

Very nice squat session despite being a weekend morning session.  No kinds of PRs, but I believe that top single more or less matches my best top set in the past year when I did 385X2 @9 at the end of a training block back in September.  Since it's the middle of the training block, that's very encouraging. 

Everything else was very solid as well, and sRPE was on target despite adding a set of Squats and a set of Pull-Downs.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 3. Session B.

sRPE @6.5

BW - 217

Press - 115X7, 7, 7 @~8

Chins -

BWX6 @8

Density; 1 rep every 0:10; 1:20 / 8 total reps @7.5

Toes-to-Bar - BWX4 @~8

Hanging Leg Raise - BWX10 @8

Hanging BB Rows - 145X10, 10, 10 @~8

Session felt a bit more "upright."

115 for 2X7 and 3X6 are Volume PRs.  Think I just need to be a bit more conservative with my target weights for this movement.  Will target a 2.5# jump next week.  Will also be adding a set.

Decided to pull back on the density chins.  Last time I did 1/0:10 I got up to, like, 4:00/24 reps @10, but that's just not where I'm at now.  Gonna keep it well sub-max for a while and see how both total chins go, and general feelings of stress go.

TTB is fine, but HLR and Hanging Rows both feeling good.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 3. Session A.

sRPE @7

BW - 217

Curls - 77.5X10, 10, 10 @~8.5

Bench - 

215X3 @8

175X7 @6

Gaspari Bar OH Raise - 57.5X7 @10

Deadlift -

420X1 @~9

360X4, 4, 4 @~6

77.5 for 2X10 is a Volume PR on Curls.

Okay session.  I'm probably still pushing harder than I should, and should take my foot off the gas a little bit.  Despite the Volume PR, Curls were flat-ish and more rest-pause-y than I want them to be.  Bench slid back.

Deadlift rebounded a bit as I did a lot of BW squats between the last squat session and this session to keep adductor DOMS at bay.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 2. Session C.

sRPE @7

BW - 221

Squat - 

375X1 @8.5

325X4, 4 @~7

Dips - BW+28X8, 7 @7.5/9

Pull-Downs - X12, 12 @7/9.5

DB Press - 47.5sX10, 8 @8/10

Weird session.  Weird week.  All lifts were either flat or down over last week.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 2. Session B.

sRPE @6.5

BW - 218

Press - 

120X5 @8

112.5X7 @7.5

Chins - 

BWX6 @8

Density - 1 rep every 0:10; 2:20 / 14 total reps @9.5

Toes-to-Bar - BWX3 @7.5

HLR - BWX9 @8

Hanging BB Rows - 142.5X10, 10 @8

Really up-and-down session, but generally smoother than Monday and definitely more on target sRPE-wise.

Don't know what happened with Press.  Last week was 112.5 for 2X7 @7.  Was looking for 120 for 2X7 today, but NOPE.

Generally, the first half of this session was a struggle, but the last half went well.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 2. Session A.

sRPE @8.5

BW - 218

Curls - 

80X10 @9

75X10 @~8

Bench - 

215X3 @8

182.5X7 @6

Gaspari-Bar OH Raise - 52.5@8 @9

Deadlift -

415X1 @9

355X4, 4, 4 @~6

Poor session.  Curls were way harder than expected, and lingering adductor DOMS from last session made DL very difficult. 

Going back and reviewing the last time I ran this block for Curls more in depth yielded some surprises.  e1RM actually went down week-over-week in the first 3 weeks then spiked in Week 4 and rocketed off from there.  I went back to look at the block and see if anything changed between Week 3 and 4.  What happened was that I backed-off the weight.  I was trying to force the weight to increase pretty drastically at the beginning of the block until I started hitting @10 on set 2.  After Week 3, I backed off to make sure I was hitting target RPE on the first set, and things seem to have gone better from there.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 1. Session C.

sRPE @6

BW - 220

Squat -

365X1 @6.75

315X4, 4 @~5.5

Dips - BW+25X8, 8 @7/8

Pull-Downs - X12 @6

DB Press - 45sX10 @7

Pretty good start to the block for Squats.  

Last time I ran this pivot, Squats started at 103% of the end of the previous block.  This one's a little less clear.  At the end of the last block, I hit 345X1 @~6 which has an e1RM of 400, and 300X8 @7 which has an e1RM of 425.  This new session had respective e1RMs of 410 and 407.5.  So the single rep strength e1RM was higher, but the lower rep strength e1RM was lower.  My general rule is the best e1RM of the day wins, so that means I dropped from 425 to 410, or 96.5%.

I figure if I've only run something twice, it's best to average the two together to decide if it's worth running again in the future.  The average of 103% and 96.5% is 99.75%.  Still very, very good, but not as good as the next best pivot which had a 101.1% increase.  So that pivot moves into Tier 2 for future consideration.  

Again, a very good start to this block for Squats, and for all 3 of my focus lifts.  Now, I get to look forward to seeing how much these increase cycle-over-cycle during this Tier 2 training block.  Still trying not to get unreasonably excited! 

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 1. Session B.

sRPE @6

BW - 217

Press - 112.5X7, 7 @7

Chin-Ups -

BWX5 @6.5

Density - 1 rep every 0:10; 2:20 / 14 total reps @7.5

Toes-to-Bar - BWX3 @7

Hanging-Leg-Raise (90 degrees) - BWX8 @7

BB Rows - 135X10, 10 @~7.5

112.5 for 2X7 is a Volume PR.  Don't get many PRs in my intro weeks!  

This e1RM is also at 97.9% of where I ended my last block.  I used Tier 2 (2nd best) Pivot programming, and that result is even better than the last time I ran that pivot block (before Block 14).  The average starting e1RM between block 14 and 19 is 97.83%

Chin-ups also felt fairly strong on the main set (97.4% e1RM drop-off).  Not quite as good as the last time I ran this pivot (98.3% prior to Block 12), but both this result and the average between them of 97.8% is still better than the next best pivot I've run.

Density chins were tough, though.  The 1 rep every 10 seconds is just hard for me.  I remember it being fairly brutal through-out the last time I ran it, but it yielded good results so we'll see.

TTB also starting off strong.  This e1RM is 101% of the end of the last block!  That's even better than the last time I ran this Tier 2 pivot.  Getting pivot strategies that toy with 100%+ on e1RM change pan-deload is a stretch goal.  I don't really expect to reliably have e1RM maintain much less increase over a pivot/deload, but maybe?

Rows here are actually a Curls accessory.  Again, it's not intuitive for me to increase Curls strength by doing Rows and Pull-Downs, but my 2nd best Curls block of the last couple of years was actually a Chins-focus block where I didn't do any Curl variations, but did Rows, and Pull-Downs.  So we'll see what happens running that again.

Block 19 (Tier 2). Cycle 1. Session A.

sRPE @6

BW - 218

Curls - 75X10, 10 @7.5

Bench - 

210X3 @7

180X6 @6

Gaspari Bar High Front Raise - 50X8 @7

Deadlift - 

400X1 @7

340X4, 4 @5

Solid start to the new block.  I'm really excited to be jumping into Tier 1 and Tier 2 Emerging Strategies work.

For the pivot, I also used Tier 2 programming, which is to say the pivot block programming that had yielded the 2nd highest starting % for a prior training block.  While I did this for all 8 of my main movements, I'm primarily concerned about the 3 movements that are the focus of the block: Curls, Press, Squats.

When I did this pivot previously for Curls, it yielded a 97.8% drop-off from the end of the prior block.  This time it yielded 97.9%!  Curls in particular tend to have a big drop-off for me between blocks with an average start of 89.2%.  Really happy about this.

Bench came in slightly under target in both rep ranges.  After the curls, it seemed like I was "feeling the Bench in my forearms" a lot.  I've had curling first in a session interfere a bit with Press, but usually not with Bench.  We'll see how it goes.

Deadlift felt pretty strong.  DL is my only Squat accessory this block.  Not intuitive to me, but my 2nd best Squat block using Emerging Strategies was a block where I only Squatted and Deadlifted for 1@8 and 4X4 @6.  Excited to see how it goes revisiting that!