Solid session despite no PRs. 142.5X6 ties a Rep PR on Press.
For chins, I'm really trying to work my way back in with super strict technique. Today it was all about touching the bar at the top. I wanted to touch it to my chest, but that seemed impossible for some reason, so I settled for touching my neck. After three sets, I kept doing them between squat warm-ups to get the volume. Not sure what I'm doing with these right now, but I want to double-down on doing them strict whatever it's going to be. Need to get video to see why I'm not able to touch my chest.
On Squats, I focused a ton on a letting the bar settle before the rep but after my breath, and then on a very controlled descent. It took some mental adjustment to be this patient, but everything felt and looks pretty good.
Coming back from a sporadic couple of weeks of training capped by a trip to New Orleans, I decided to pull back on most of my lifts. Backed Press and Squat up by two weeks, resetting the BW movements to be as strict as possible, and repeating the previous Deadlift weight.
140X7 is a Rep PR on Press. Definitely didn't expect that on the first day back. On the last few reps, I focused in on sort of "locking" my hips in place as the bar clears my head. Kind of creating a more stable pillar to finish the press out after the initial movement to get the bar from chest to the forehead.
For Chins, I'm looking now for full elbow extension, and a breathing pause at the bottom of each rep, and chin over the bar at the top. Reset to 3X5 at BW. I was nervous I wouldn't get them all, but I did. I've also built a calculator that will allow me to add ~2.5 to the TOTAL weight lifted after each time I get all 3X5. Basically I just plug in my body weight for that day, and it will tell me how much weight to add. I expect this to look a bit silly the first few times as I'll have a dip belt with a 2.5 hanging off of it. Third set shown.
After everything, I'm very happy with 3X5 on squats. I would have needed 8 for a Rep PR here, and that was unrealistic. Although this final set was probably RPE 8.5. I focused on letting the bar settle "back" on my shoulders after the breath. I'd noticed sometimes I would take the deep breath and immediately descend, and the bar was rolling forwards a bit. This seemed to help with that. Also continued to focus on a very controlled descent to make sure the bar path stays good. Again, felt very good about the results here. Keeping these points in mind for next week, I'm optimistic I'll feel good about getting some more reps in.
197.5X10 is a Rep PR on Bench. I was running out of gas a bit at the end, but strength-wise I think my short-term goal of 200X10 should be in reach.
228 (BW)X11 is a Rep PR on Chins. Not a cart-wheel situation as my chin form certainly isn't super strict. Something I'm pondering how I want to approach. For now, my non-strict form is still consistent, so I'm comfortable progressing it as-is. 2nd weighted set and BWX11 set shown.
335X6 is a Rep PR on Deadlifts. Would have like to have gone for 8 again, but was feeling pretty gassed on this day and decided to settle for the minimum PR.
258 (BW+30) X11 is a Rep PR on Dips. Getting pretty tough if I don't focus on breath quality and micro-breaks. 3rd set shown.
190X10 is a Rep PR in Bench. Everything felt pretty good. Pushed this to the just about the limit, and should probably start getting a spotter for these AMRAP sets, as I almost hit the J-Hook when I went to rack it. Tried a different video angle. This might be the best one so far. At least it was informative in that it showed I'm not centered on the pad, and that appears to be causing an uneven lock-out because the shoulder hangs over.
Chin-ups did not go well. Tried backing off the weight for the 2nd set, but it didn't help. Time for some kind of reset. Thinking I will drop back down to 20, and start micro-loading. If I hit a wall there, I will possibly start over with body-weight and a different grip, or dead-hangs.
Dips went fine.
305X8 is a Rep PR on Deadlift. Primary limiting factor here is still fatigue. At the end of the session, and having to breath hunched over, I just run out of gas. Fatigue aside, I believe this is about RPE 8 for pure strength.
125X11 is a Rep PR on Press. RPE 10. Took careful planning of shorter and longer breathing rests, and still, around Rep 8, I thought I might be in trouble. Happy to have gotten it!
390X3 is an all-around PR on Deadlift. Feeling slow and heavy, but still do-able with commitment. I only doubled 390 on Squat, so it's nice to see my DL outperforming the squat for once outside of a meet. Didn't quite lock out the 3rd rep to competition standards, but I don't care. Trying to decide if I just want to hit doubles the rest of the way, or keep pushing triples. Oh, and btw, back in early August 350X3 was a Rep PR set. Now it's a back-off set.
251 (BW+25)X4 is a Rep PR on chins. Feeling heavy from the first rep now. 2nd weighted set and first BW set shown.
256 (BW+30)X6 is a Rep PR on Dips. These were about as easy as I wanted them to be for a reset that still delivers an adaptation dose. I'm eliminating the BW back-off sets starting with this session, and working on weighted sets only. I'll run +30 up to the 10-12 rep range for 3 sets across, and then up the weight again.
122.5X9 is a Rep PR in Press. Had to "get up" for it a bit, and also pre-plan how I was going to break the reps up into sections i.e. 3 reps, extra breaths, 2 reps, breaths, 2 reps breaths, 1, breath, 1.
Decided to do SLDL for the first "DL" day back from my vacation. I will start throwing this in occasionally as necessary if my low back is feeling to fatigued for regular DL.
Used the belt on Press, but wasn't sure if I needed it for SLDL. My back felt a little wonky on the first set, so I belted up for the next two. The weight isn't heavy, but trying to keep to form perfect is dicey as I haven't done these in a while.
Had just been doing dips on this day, but through in some more chins to try and help balance out the shoulder work.
Light day for Squat and Press. 2nd weekend in a row of having folks visit from out of town, so no conditioning this weekend.
Half way through my deadlift set, I tried taking as big a breath as possible because my back wasn't feeling awesome, and I discovered that I hadn't been taking nearly big enough breaths. Last reps felt much better than first reps.
Coach had me working on contracting my abs harder to try and help out with the hip/low-back issue. It worked, BUT on the 3rd rep of my 3rd set of squats, something went POP under a rib on the left side. Nothing terrible, but made it so I couldn't keep contracting my abs that way. All I could do was laugh.
Bench went really well. Tightening up the technique even more. Today the focus was on staying super tight, up on my traps, and not relaxing at all when I took a breath between reps. It made the breathing harder, but the lifting stronger.
My hip/low-back thing was bugging me on Speed DL as well. We tried lowering the starting position for my hips just a bit, and that helped. We'll have to see how that handles on intensity day.
115X11 is a Rep PR and a 2 rep improvement over last week. These reps are non-stop unless I need to take a breath. Last week, stopping to breath felt like it took a lot out of me in regards to tightness and energy. This week, I took a breath between every warm-up rep to drill in staying tight and focused. It seemed to rally help on the worksets. 17 reps still seems a long way off, but we'll see.
