Block 2 (Accumulation). Cycle 1. Day 1.

BW - 212

Squat - 225X8, 8, 8 @6

Tempo Incline Bench 2-2-0 - 105X5, 5, 5 @6

Tempo BB Row 0-2-0 -
100X8, 8 @~7
95X8 @8

Low back pain seems all but gone, and gave me no issues on day 1 of this block.

While this is conceived as an accumulation block, I'm starting off with good 'ol 3 sets across.  As I've been struggling with injuries for so long, and had so many pivot blocks, I want to make sure I easy myself back into both volume and intensity on the big movements. 

Squat felt better than it has in a long time as neither my back, nor my quads gave me any issues here.  Focus was on very controlled reps.

Tempo incline topped out at a lower weight than I would have expected, but I've never done these before.  I took a moderate grip, but nevertheless triceps began fatiguing very quickly.  I originally conceived everything in this cycle to be 3X8, but it became clear on the warm-ups on these that the tempo was hitting me hard and fast, and so I called an audible to do these for 3X5 so that I could keep relative intensity a bit higher.

Rows paused at the top are also fairly new to me, and the weight was hilariously low.  I'm only doing a 2-day cycle this time around, and I'm a bit nervous this movement could be too light in relative intensity for a DL accessory.  However, coming of a 2.5 week low-back strain, I wanted to kick off with something that would put low intensity tension on the low back to "test" it.  Hmmmm.  We'll see.

Video is all of final sets.

Block 1 (Accumulation). Cycle 1. Day 2 and 3 (Bench and Deadlift focus).

Day 2

BW - 217

Bench - 165X8, 8, 8 @6/7

High-Bar Box Squat - 185X6, 6, 6, 6, 6 @6/7

2" Mat Pulls w/ Straps - 257.5X7, 7, 7, 7 @6/7

Day 3

BW - 218

Deadlift - 242.5X8, 8, 8, 2* @6/*10 (tweaked low back)

Tempo Squat 2-2-0 - 185X5, 5, 5 @6/7

Close-Grip Bench - 127.5X8, 8, 8, 8 @6/7

Bench went from 6 to 7 pretty fast.  Not sure what that was about.

High-Bar Box Squats and Elevated Deads both went fine.

Day 2 felt solid overall.

Not so much Day 3.  Tweaked my back on the 2nd rep of the 4th set of Deads.  Video of 3rd and 4th sets below.  Probably just getting in too much of a hurry because the low intensity is kind of boring, and makes the higher rep sets seem to take forever.  Feels about 80% back to normal 3 days later, and didn't prevent me completely from finishing the training session.

I have to take the tempo squat weights with a grain of salt because of the back injury.  If the low back is fine this week we'll see how they do.  Generally would expect these to have been heavier.

CG Bench was a shit show getting to my work weight.  It took me 4 sets to find this weight, at which point I was already fairly fatigued.  Theoretically that should mean this will be a conservative number come the next session.

Hope the low back continues to heal quickly.  Was very happy to be starting a new cycle, and would hate to get derailed in the first week.