Another solid session this week. Nice to get a little string of them going.
Week 5 hasn't been great for Bench to this point, so it was nice to get a bigger than usual jump this week. I was shooting for 245, but warm-ups indicated something slightly lighter. The top set was rock solid, and has been this cycle. I think some of that is down to only getting a lift-off on the top set allowing me to have a tad more energy for the actual reps.
Cambered Bench was also solid.
I only got 1 more rep in the Chin-Up density block this week, but I was 2 lbs. heavier than last week so that's alllllllright.
What an adventure. I ended up looking at last week's programmed DL numbers instead of my squat numbers. Didn't realize it until have my last warm-up set of 9. But that set felt @7 so....I went with it. Top set ended up being a touch heavier than I wanted, so probably should have been closer to my original target of 345. Still I decided to push the back-off sets up by 5 lbs., and that worked out okay...although it might have negatively impacted my sumos later in the session.
Interestingly, this is the third block in a row of having a big jump on squats in cycle 3 and/or 4. Interested to see what happens next week.
Rack chins took a little step back with the increase in BW. Need to get that increase under better control.
Sumo were actually a little weaker than last week. 285 was supposed to be my last warm-up, but was clearly @7+ so I stayed there. As I mentioned above, I suspect going a little harder on Squats earlier in the session may have contributed.
Quad still "tickles" a lot during warm-ups on squats, and a bit during the 10 rep set. I get acclimated to it, and it doesn't really interfere with my work sets. I am sometimes waking up in the night to find my quads really achy, and hard to get into a position where they calm back down. I get something similar when I've been driving for a long time.
Mis-loaded the bench to 155 instead of 145 and it was til @6 so....interesting.
On DL, getting more acclimated to holding position and taking a breath at the bottom of the rep. SUPER boring on warm-ups, but actually seems to help prevent cardio fatigue on the work sets. In addition to keeping form tighter.
Low back has been not great the last few days despite taking Friday through the weekend off from lifting. Started popping NSAIDs on Sunday, and felt okay to go to the gym on this Monday. Decided ahead of time not to Deadlift. Perhaps won't deadlift again the rest of this block or at least a week after the low back feels good.
Went with the same weight as last time on tempo squats. RPE came in lower which was good, but I didn't want to adjust the weight upwards as I started to "feel" the low back injury a bit. I did throw in an extra set just looking to get @6+. Decided to play it safe, but was enthused that these felt better.
Worked up to last week's Close-Grip working weight of 127.5 and it was @5 at the most, and so warranted a jump to 135. Same number of sets to get to @7. Low back gave me a little trouble getting set up, but not too bad.
Decided to continue last week's new adventures with pull-up variations with straps. Early days with these, but...my forearms strangely feel like they're getting more work? Like, burning after the set like you get with high rep isolation work. It seems counter-intuitive to think the forearms (i.e. "grip muscles") would be getting more work with straps. Not sure exactly how to test that.
Still avoiding HIIT conditioning till the back feels better. No video today.
First day of the new cycle! Very happy to be revving things up.
Quads felt fine during Squats. I have "normal" DOMS less than 24 hours later, and we'll see how that trends over the next 24. Otherwise, these felt great. Estimated target weight for the day was 252.5, and happy to have ended up in that ballpark. Mostly happy to just be squatting for volume (and reps) pain free, but am hopeful that I can see a robust increase in intensity through this block since this weight is about 100 lbs. under my best set of 7.
Over 3 years since I did DB flat bench, so I had no target. First set with the 55s was really awkward, and I thought I might have overshot, but the 2nd set was @6 tops, and then I sailed through until I hit a conservative @7 on the sixth set. Depending on fatigue and recovery for the first week, I would expect these weights to be higher next week. Didn't grab any video of these.
I've never used a trap bar. Ever. It was fun! If a little strange feeling. I decided to use the high handles for this cycle as they seem to involve less legs, and therefore more back? The range of motion feels very strange, but it was all good.
Sunday is my #1 least favorite day to train. Fatigue kicked in pretty quickly across the board at this mid-day session.
Grip was by far the limiting factor on Deadlift.
Box Squats felt very solid. Shank is nice and vertical; really pushing the lift into the posterior-chain. No quad pain during set at all. No increase in quad discomfort outside of the gym within 24 hours following session.
Ran out of gas quick on the DB Inclines.
Looking forward to switching back to full training.
Conditioning - Treadmill Sprints - 20 second sprint / 120 second walk; 7 rounds
Nagging quad pain is playing hell with my squats. W11.D3. also just seemed to be an "off" or "down" day in general. Press top-strength was underwhelming, although back-off strength was higher avg. intensity that previous. Deadlift was definitely down.
Then I went out-of-town for 3 days.
I hoped that the extra day off would help with the quads, but not really. Squat strength on W12.D1. was definitely limited by pain. Was hoping to work up to a triple @ 8, but ended up doing a single @ 8 (no video) and doing triples for the back-off. These intensities are disappointing, but at least I hit another 2-year BW low coming off a wedding trip. Anyway. I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle much volume at a decent intensity for back-off sets of 5, so I decided to use the "fatigue drop" / "RPE Stop" technique of doing volume sets until the RPE rises a certain amount. In this case, I dropped to 3's @ 8, and did them until I hit a 3 @ 9 with that weight.
The high-incline bench was taken on this day, and I hate the gym's other incline bench because it's got a curve at the top that makes it much closer to a flat bench. I was at the gym earlier in the afternoon than normal because I'd take an extra day off after our trip, so I dragged a particularly sturdy DB incline bench over to a power rack and used that instead. Actually may be my favorite incline set up I've used at this gym.
Chin-Ups and rows were fine. Rows felt a little weaker than last week, but no big.
Whew. The thought here was to do some work that would benefit the start of my deadlift, to use movements that require less weight, and to use the super-sets to keep moving and help burn some calories. Super-setting paused Fronts and deficit Deads looks a little nuts now that I'm seeing it written down, but it was quite do-able. I did tend to get a little dizzy after the deficit sets, though.
205X1 is technically a Rep PR for all Front Squatting, hahaha.
I guess 315 and 335X1 were both also technically Rep PR's for deficit pulls as well. I'd always done them after regular pulls, and so had only really used 275-295 before. Yay! Lots of PRs!
I wanted to at least touch on regular deadlift to keep locking in my form tweaks, so I decided to work up and down. 335 broke off the floor but stopped below the knees, so I cut it there and worked back down and finished up with some sets at 275.
Probably didn't even need to do the treadmill after all of that, sheesh.
Had a few days away from the gym because a buddy came to visit and we went out of town on a trip. Couldn't make it to the gym to do any barbell movements, so I just repeated the same back workout from 3 days ago.
Just a quick upper body accessory day at the office gym.
Chin-ups felt average. The slightly higher reps on the initial sets are chalked up to a lower BW.
The cable rows were done standing over a low pulley to mimic a DB row position. The DBs at my office gym don't go up high enough to have used them here. There may be a new-ness effect, but I like the way these felt. I kept my arm a bit away from my body and concentrated on pulling with my elbow until my shoulder blade felt fully retracted.
Incline Flye - 20sX15, 15, 15
super-set with
DB Rear Delts - 30sX20, 20, 20
Plate Raise - 25X25
Treadmill - 30 minutes; incline walking
Alright session. I was looking for 19 reps with 145 on Incline, so I will repeat this weight next week.
I had been hesitant to try the hammer bench, because I didn't want to try another movement that would aggravate my shoulder. This actually was okay, although the weight was really light. I'll try it again next week.
I probably went overboard on assistance a little bit here, time-wise. Starting next week, I will be going more frequently, doing the main lifts on separate days from the assistance, and alternating steady-state with interval cardio. I want those sessions to be shorter, so I'll just have to contain myself.
Good little body-buildery session. I did some rest-pause on the 100 rep movements, and my triceps and rear-delts are really feeling it today.
The treadmill was just some extra conditioning that I threw in because I'm in the middle of a 3-day crunch when I can't get outside for my scheduled conditioning. I'll still get the rest of the regular programmed stuff in this weekend as I switch to the next phase.
Face Pulls, Rope Pushdowns, Rope Hammer Curls - 1 set of 100 each
Treadmill - 20 minutes walking
Nice little workout with DBs and the Cable stand. Pushdowns were easier than the curls, but I think the biceps were a little pre-fatigued from the face pulls.
I was feeling froggy and had some time to kill, so I hopped on the treadmill for 20 minutes.
EZ Bar Curls - BarX70, 30
superset with
EZ Bar OH Extensions - BarX70, 30
Treadmill Intervals - 8 intervals, 20 minutes
My shoulders were literally flying up off the bench at lockout of all except the top couple of sets of bench. Light. Weight. Bay-bee.
100 pulldowns felt weird. I used the same weight I used on rows, and halfway through I thought there was no way I would make a 100, but then I did with room to spare.
EZ bar is much easier on my wrists for extensions, so I decided to superset empty bar extensions with curls to keep everything moving. Kind of surprised I didn't get to 100 with the 20 lb. bar. Nice to have something to shoot for.
Weather was horrendous, but I needed to get my conditioning in before my schedule clogs up later this week. That meant I had to make rare use of the treadmill. Treadmill is a fine tool, it just bores the hell out of me so I avoid it. Then when I have to use it I always overestimate how hard I can go. That was the case today, and I ran myself pretty much into the ground. My vision was literally doing that weird zoom effect from Vertigo when I got off.
