LRB 365: LRB Split. Week 1. Press - Heavy

BW - 197

Press -
BarX10
65X5
85X5
95X5, 5
105X5

Bench -
95X5
105X4
125X3
135X2, 2
145X1
155X1

Upright Rows - 85X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

V-Bar Pushdowns - X35, 30, 18, 15, 12

Forgot shorts, and had to work out in jeans.  The confusion caused me to forget my mobility and stretching warm-ups until I was half-way through my Press sets.  Ha.

Press felt good.  My goal for this cycle is 125X5, or 10 more pounds a week.  That would be a PR.  Could be ambitious, but since Bench isn't getting pushed as hard, gotta shoot for assistance PRs.

Bench was fine.  155 is well below my Every Day Max, so I focused on getting tight and moving it fast.

Upright Rows were solid.  If I can hit either 105 for multiple sets of 10, or for more than 10 reps in one set by the end of the cycle, that will be a PR.  Again, that's adding 10 lbs. a week.

I want to do bench dips for my triceps assistance on this day, but there wasn't a good/free spot in the gym to set up for these, so I opted for push-downs.  However, I almost exclusively do rope push-downs, so I thought I would switch that up anyway.  Will the grip matter?  Will I be able to do bench dips next time?  Will I vacillate uncertainly between different movements every week?  Who cares.  It's triceps assistance.  Just get some work in.

UB: Strong Week 2. Deadlift

No warm-up

Standing Calf Raises - 225X16, 265X15, 305X15

Deadlift -
145X5
165X5
195X5
215X5
235X5

Power Shrugs - 275X16, 295X10

Chin-ups - Gym BW 202X10, 4

Cable crunch - Stack + 45lb. PlateX15, Stack+60lb.X15, 18

10 minute brisk walk on treadmill

Forgot to pack shorts or sweats in my gym bag today and had to work-out in my work slacks, lol.  Skipped warm-ups to help make sure I didn't rip out the crotch.  Ridiculous.

Jumped up a few more plates on the calf raises.  Just a few away from the whole stack for whatever it's worth.  Pretty confident I'll be there by the end of the cycle.

Felt pretty focused on the DL's today and everything moved pretty smoothly.  The first or second rep almost always feels like the best, though.  That kind of seems to make sense with the way I read other lifters talking about having to program the Pull somewhat differently from the other lifts.  In the future, I may condsider keeping the reps in the 1-3 range for work-sets of this lift.  I almost feel like it would be better to do multiple sets of 2-3 at the same weight I might do 1 set of 5 with on lighter days. 

Next week my top set will be 255, and while my 5 rep max projects to be 265, 255 is actually the most I've lifted for 5 or more reps (I pulled 255X6 in the middle of my 2nd 531 cycle back in early December).  Looking forward to seeing how that feels.  Hopefully I'll be feeling focused and fresh like I was this session and everything will move smoothly.