Conditioning. Week 3. Lower Body

BW - 203

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X5
215X5
235X5

Deadlift -
135X5
185X3
225X3
275X2
305X2
325X1, 1, 1

Cuff Work - Lots

Rope Extensions - X20, 20, 15, 13

Crunches - BWX80

So what I'm doing here is alternating each week between light volume and weight on one lift and super-light volume and slightly heavier weight on the other.  So today was the heavier Deadlift day.  This worked out well so that I could continue to test out the adductor.  I had no issues with it, and all the squats felt fairly strong.  Deadlift felt good too, however I can tell that both lifts are down from my winter bests.

This was supposed to be a day to work on push-up strength with push-up volume and weighted dips, but I'm continuing to rehab the shoulder strain.  It's feeling better, though.

Doing the rope extensions to keep some triceps work going on my off-bench day since the push-ups and dips are out.

Upped the total reps on crunches.  I could do more here either in the single set, or with more sets, but since the decline sit-ups are so hard, it's nice to have a lighter day on these as well.

Just for a reference diet-wise, this is what my bodyweight fluctuation has looked like over the past 2 1/2 years that I've been tracking it regularly:

I generally feel pretty good about this pattern, but I'm still working to tweak both diet and life-style so that each can meet the goals of the other.

Conditioning. Week 2. Lower Body

BW - 205

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X4
155X4
185X3
225X3
265X2, 2

Deadlift -
135X4
185X4
225X4
275X4
285X4

Push-Ups - BWX25, 15, 15, 10, 10, 11; 86 total reps

Rope Extensions - X25, 20, 20

Crunches - X75

Okay session.  I programmed for 3 sets of 2 with 265.  However, all reps but the very 1st were slow, and my left adductor started feeling really sore after the 2nd set, so I stopped.  I think the adductor is still feeling blitzed from 'The Sprints of Death' last week.  I remember being surprised at how sore they were for about 24 hours afterwards.

Deadlifts were all fast.

Push-ups were okay.  Next week I'll shoot for 90 in the same amount of sets or fewer.  Shoulder felt fairly stable throughout.

Speaking of the shoulder issues, I programmed to alternate weekly between weighted and BW dips here, but to be on the safe side, I'm just doing push-downs.

Got all the crunches in 1 set.  That's fine.  I'll just keep progressing them as a single set.  Think of it as a 'light' day, as opposed to the decline sit-ups on the other day.

Conditioning. Week 1. Upper Body

BW - 205

Cuff Work - Lots (capsule stretching, band dislocations, pull aparts, 5lb. plate "cleans," front raises with various grips, band external rotations)

Bench -
BarX20, 20
95X6
115X6
135X6
155X8

BB Rows -
BarX15
95X10
135X15, 12, 15

Chins - BWX10, 5, 5

Decline Sit-Ups - BWX10, 10, 10

Being very careful with the shoulder since I seemed to re-aggravate it by sprinting (!).  Just tried to run through a sequence of everything I've ever done for shoulder cuff and shoulder prehab.

That included an extra warm-up set with just the bar, and more reps and smaller jumps on the warm-up sets.  Originally I programmed for 12 reps of 155, which would normally be slightly challenging but completely do-able.  Everything was very tentative today, and I cut it at 8.

The lay-off and tentativeness about the shoulder seemed to cut into my rowing as well.  This felt more like a neuromuscular issue than a strength issue.  My mind just didn't want to let my body "get after it" today on these.

Chins were okay, though.  Programmed for 20 total, and got it in 3 sets.  Hoped to go over on the last set, but 5 was the limit.

The crunches I did in my BW circuits in the last block did not set me up well for decline sit-ups.  Originally hoped to do 60 or so total reps, but had to bring that down, and will adjust my programming for this block accordingly.

5/3/1 Log: Cycle 1. Week 3. Incline

Defranco Shoulder Mobility
Incline -
BarX10
95X5
120X5
135X3
150X3
125X10

Klokov Press -
45X5
65X3
75X2
85XFail

Chin-ups - BW(206)X10, 4

Cable Rows - 3 sets of 10-12

Swiss Ball Crunches - 3 sets of 15

Not a bad session for having been out of the gym for over a week with a low back strain.  I used a different incline bench that's a little less vertical, and my pressing was predictably stronger.  I guess I'll just have to start tracking which bench I use in a session.  Still, because my incline was weaker than anticipated in my first week, for the next three weeks, I'm dialing back my training max in the hopes to get more reps on my top set.  Because I could only get 3 reps on my top set here, I decided to do the back-off set with 125.  Both the 150X3 and the 125X10 projected to increased maxes on this movement, but again, it was a shallower bench.

UB: Strong Week 5. Press

Defranco Shoulder Mobility

Machine Lateral Neck Flexion - 20X20X3 each side

Press -
BarX12
70X5
80X5
90X5
105X5
115X5

BB Upright-Rows - 105X10, 5

DB Laterals - 35sX8, 5

Defranco-style Core circuit - 45lb. plate X2 (spread-eagle sit-ups, crunches, crunches w/ feet up)

Treadmill - 5 min. walk, 5 min. jog

I switched neck work to lateral flexion starting today.  Paul Carter down-played my notion that neck work could contribute to any of the big lifts saying it's just in the program because it's cool to have a big neck.  Nevertheless, I did some digging on exrx.net and it looks like the muscles responsible for lateral neck flexion play a bit of a role in the deadlift; at least more than the other neck muscles are involved in any of the other big lifts, so I might as well work on those if I'm gonna do neck work.

Pressing felt Hea.  Vy.  3 times I've lifted the equivalent of this weight or more in the Press, but I gotta say that I'm nervous I may miss my goal next week.  Maybe not though.  I know I've strained more to make this lift before, so hopefully I can gut out my little 5lb. 5 Rep PR next week.  Similar to my last Squat sessions, I may reduce the total weight of the warm-up sets to save more for the top set next week.

I've gone back and looked at my logs to try and figure out differences between when the press felt strong and when it felt weak like it kind of does now.  Of course there can be lots of factors that effect things, and I don't track diet and weight as closely as a lot of folks do, so I could be missing something there.  But the biggest difference I can see in the logs, is dropping overhead triceps work.  I've been relying on pressing movements and dips for triceps work for a couple of months now, and the press has felt heavier and heavier.  Back when it was shooting up and feeling strong, I was doing a lot of overhead BB extensions.  Hope this is a light-bulb moment.