BLAB Log: HYBRID Week 11.Day3 / Week12.Day 1

Simple-6

Chins - BWX7, BWX6

Bench Press - BarX5, 95X5, 135X3, 165X2, 185X1

BB Overhead Shrug - 185X15ish, 145X15, 145X15

One-Arm Pulldowns, slow eccentric - 50X12, 40X12 each arm

BB Curls, cheat-up, slow eccentric - 75X5X2

45lb. plate Core circuit X2

BB Push-ups - Ladder down from BWX17-1

My rehearsal schedule prevented me from getting to the gym on Saturday, and will prevent me from getting there for the next week, so I decided to combine the next 2 days into one session.  Truthfully, I just couldn't wait a week+ for my bench test.

For the main movements, the chins were fine I guess.  6 might actually be a record for my 2nd set now that I look at it.  For the bench, my target was 185X2 which would have raised my projected max.  I got the first rep, but failed on the 2nd.  I'm totally okay with this because that makes this my first ever true 1RM attempt!  Kind of exciting until I realize that I won't see that weight again for months.  It almost makes me want to run BLAB again.  Defranco's program would have me attempting more reps on that weight in weeks 4 and 9, and trying to lift heavier in week 11.  But I miss pulls and presses, so I'm still going to go over to 531...where it will be 5 months before I see 185 on the bench again.  Fuuuuuck.  Whatever.  Novice results, law of diminishing returns, marathon not a sprint, training to get stronger rather than powerlifting, etc.

For accessory work, I chose one movement for each area from the two days.  For back, I chose to do the one-arm pulldowns since it is specifically in there to help my feeble chin strength.  For shoulders, I went with the OH shrugs.  Tried to go even heavier this time, but it got dicey.  After I dropped the weight, I discovered that using a split-stance, and starting with my elbows locked, my knees bent, and "squatting" the weight up to the starting position helped my balance a great deal.  For biceps, I went with the cheater curls, and they were fine.

Core circuit was the most successful I've had in a while.  Again, I plant to keep the core portion of this program in my 531 programming.  It's got a lot of variety that I suck at, so might as well get better at it since I need to do core something anyway.

I chose to only pick one of the finishers, for what I hope are fairly obvious reasons.  I went with the push-ups, because I'd rather be good at push-ups than complexes.  Very satisfying results.  That's two good push-up sessions in a row, so I fully expect to crap the bed on next week's rep test, so that I can get good and depressed about my push-up ability once again.

Only two days left in the program.  Can't believe it.  Since those are no-squat lower body and chin-up days, I might try to see if I can find a gym near the theatre to sneak in and finish this up.  I tried doing that on Saturday, because my gym closed before I got out of rehearsal.  There's another gym on the way home, and I stopped in, looked around, and saw that they probably had everything I needed.  I walked up to the desk and I asked the guy "What's your daily rate?"  "Fifteen Dollars."  "Fifteen Dollars?!  For one workout?"  "Yes."  "Bye."  No way am I paying $15 to go use the lat-pulldown machine in a treadmill factory.

BLAB Log: Week 11.Day 1

Simple-6

BB Bench Warm-up - 45X5, 95X5

BB Bench - 125X4, 135X2, 155X1, 165X1, 180X1

DB Floor-Press, neutral grip - 45sX23, 20

Inverted Row - BWX11X2

BB Overhead Shrug - 45X15, 95X15, 145X15

Incline DB Curls, Rest-Pause - 35sX10, 4, 2

Defranco's "BeZercher" Complex - 45X10, 9
   without lunges - 45X8, 7

180 is 25lbs. more than I've ever loaded for bench.  I had to get a spotter to come help me with unrack, and I descended pretty hard, but I think I aced the weight.  Jefit thinks I max out around 195.  Between that and this 180, I feel confident that I can get more than one rep on next week's 185 rep test.  I'm wondering if I should tinker with my set-up so that I don't need help with the unrack at this weight.  Moving my shoulders closer to the uprights is obviously the answer, but my set-up has seemed pretty dialed-in.  Probably shouldn't mess with that.  I can tinker when I start 531, possibly.

Sweat Angel!

The sweat spots on the floor where I did the DB floor-presses cracked me up.

VERY hard to get my chest to the bar on the inverted rows.  I tried elevating my feet for the 2nd set, but no help.  Possibly I should set-up with the bar closer to my diaphragm.  I'll tinker with it next week.

I had to mess around with the overhead shrugs to figure out where I should be on them.  After doing a set with just the bar, I new I would be able to shrug more than I could press, so I had to put the pins at the highest setting in the power rack and stick the bar up there and load it. This kind of turned it into dead-stop shrugs because the bar hit the pins at the bottom almost every time. 145 was probably close to where I should be for these.  It was interesting having that much weight locked-out overhead.  The most I've ever pressed was about 105, so balance was a bit wonky. 

I had to drop the full lunges out of the "BeZercher" complex.  The weight of the empty bar is just too close to where my work-set weight would be for lunges.  I'm sure Defranco put these sort of "weak-link" movements in the complexes for a reason, but it was either drop the lunges or stop doing the complexes.