Texas Method Team Training. Week 5. Intensity Day

BW - 225

Squat - 310X5

Bench - 197.5X5

Deadlift - 310X5

My back and side were tight all day, but I worked my hamstrings over really well before lifting, and everything went great!  Squats were really fast, bench took focus but nothing was a grind, and deadlifts were smooth.

Reps and Volume. Week 2. Press

BW - 227

Press -
BarX5
65X4
85X3
105X2
125X2
135X1
115X11, 6

Face-Pulls - X100 (upped weight from last week)

Cross-Body Hammer Curls - 12sX2X25, each arm

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.

LRB 365: Strong-15. Week 1. Bench

BW - 201

Bench -
BarX10
85X5
95X4
115X3
125X2
135X1
145X1
155X1
115X15

Incline -
105X10, 10, 10, 10, 10

DB Flyes - 2 sets of 20

Rope Pushdowns - 4 sets of 20

80+% session.  Now that I'm past all the limiting symptoms of last weekend's head-cold, I felt like this session was a more realistic introduction to the new program than Saturday's plague-ridden squat session.

As promised, the introductory weights all felt light as hell, and I was able to focus on applying maximum explosiveness while also keeping my form tight.  This has been one of the biggest difficulties for me of late:  keeping my upper back tight while driving lighter weight to lock-out.  I find that high bar speeds tend to pull my shoulders apart at the top resulting in a loss of tightness for the following reps, and I'm trying to correct this problem.  There was progress on this today.

I would like to have gotten more than 15 reps with 115, but the bar was moving way slow and I was just out of gas.

I think this was an over-all volume PR for inclines, however.  Don't think I've gotten 5 full sets of 10 with 105 before.  As maximizing assistance volume is one of the top-tier goals for the introductory phase of the Strong-15, I'm pleased with this, and will continue to push it in coming weeks.

I haven't done DB flyes in...I don't know.  And I kind of remembered why.  In order to keep stress on the muscle, the range of motion is severely limited.  I double-checked the manual, and it just says "Flat Flyes," so I think I will switch to pec-deck.

It's also over a year since I did any kind of cable push-down, and these 4 sets of 20 really fried me.  I kept the weight light, and tried to focus on feeling the triceps pull and relax.

All in all, felt like a pretty good body-building session.  My first in I don't know how long.  I'm certainly reminded how boring aspects of training this way can be however, but maybe I can focus on adjusting my perspective in that regards.

5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 2. Bench

BW - 201

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X5, 5
185X3
210X3
235X1

BW Lunges - 3 sets of 10

Bench -
BarX15
95X5, 5
120X3
140X3
155X7
95X12

Chins - BWX10, 8, 5, 5, 5

Pause Squats felt good.  Something that occurred to me about starting every training session with squats:  it forces me to take everything seriously.  Obviously I should take everything seriously, but the thrill/danger of squatting just puts me in a different place from the very first set than anything else.  And I'm not just talking about starting off with calves or neck or something.  Even benching and deadlifting with an empty or light bar does not snap me to attention in the same way that back squats will.  And once I'm in that place, I'm pretty much there the rest of the session, and able to focus in on every rep and set even at the end of a session when I'm fatigued and the last thing I want to do is another set of paused-chins.

Getting that extra leg work in with lunges here.

Bench felt really, really solid today.  155X7 is my 2nd best lift since I reset my form.  I went back to thumb around here, since thumbless didn't seem to help at all last time.  I good cue that I found this session was squeezing my shoulder blades together throughout the lift.  I realized that at the top of reps, I was extending my shoulders all the way forward and was losing tightness in my back.  This worked very, very well, and was something I hadn't understood about the lift previously.

I believe 201X10 is an all-around PR since I started pausing my chins as the bottom.