Full Body. Week 1. Deadlift

BW - 199

Bulgarian Split Squats - BWX15, 15, 15

DB Incline -
45sX15
50sX10, 11, 15

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
365X1
275X5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Chins - BWX8, 6, 6, 4

EZ Bar, Reverse Grip, Preacher Curls - 40ishX15, 10, 8

No rehearsal, and back at my regular gym, so I was able to get the full session in as originally programmed.

Shoulder didn't love the DB Incline the next day, but it wasn't as aggravated by these as by dips.  On my last set, I got a guy to stand by and take the DB out of my left hand for me.  Getting it down to the ground without dropping it seemed to be aggravating the shoulder more than the actual pressing.

Deadlifts felt strong.  I was originally going to go super-light and stop at 315 and then drop down to something in the low-to-mid 200's for sets of 5-8.  However, 315 was so fast I decided to jump on up to 365 and then back-off to 275.  365 was fast, and all the sets/reps of 275 felt strong and fast until the last reps on the last couple sets.  Had a lot of fun with this.

Was pretty well blasted for chins afterwards, though.

Full Body. Week 1. Rows

BW - 199

High Bar Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
155X5
185X13, 8

Rows -
BarX20
95X10
135X8
175X8, 8, 6

Dips - BWX15, 15, 10

High Bars and Rows were all fine.  Today was supposed to be Bench day, but I've been staying away from Bench trying to let my shoulder get better.  Thought I'd try some dips, and they went fine for the most part, but today my shoulder is back to feeling kind of shitty.  Goddammit.

Full Body. Week 1. Squat

BW - 200

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X1
195X13, 10

RDL -
135X10
185X10, 10

PBN -
BarX20
65X5
85X3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Started rehearsing a new show, so I joined a new, short-term "away" gym.  The somewhat well known Quads Gym.  The one in northern Chicago, not the one Ed Coan trains at in the South Suburbs.  Anyway, it's relatively well-appointed for strength training, except for only having two Deadlift platforms (one a combo with a squat rack).  Maybe I'm just spoiled by my regular gym.

Took some time to get signed up and shown around, and that cut into my workout time before rehearsal.  This day is programmed to have a couple other things, but I only had time for the essentials.

The 275 single was smooth.  I'll be looking to push reps on the 2 sets of 195 pretty high and see what happens in the coming weeks.  I've done 195 for 20 before, and I want to try and see how close I can get to that on the SECOND set.

I wanted to take it light with the RDL's to start.  I've had some back trouble from intense squatting, Deadlifting and RDL...ing in the same week before.

Volume on PBN is fine.  Shoulder feeling good.  I'll give it another couple sessions or weeks and then maybe see what bench feels like.

"Conditioning." Week 5. Upper Body

BW - 200

BB Rows -
BarX20
95X8
135X8
155X12, 12, 10, 10

Chins - BWX8, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4 (33 total reps)

PBN (warm-ups super-set with pull-aparts) -
BarX20
55X5
65X5
85X3
90X3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

BB Curl - BarX40, 30, 20, 15 (105 total reps)

Solid session, although I felt somewhat weaker across the board than Monday.

Rows were solid, but chins were a bit off.

[crossing my fingers] Over the past week and a half of doing PBN, my shoulder is starting to feel better.  I started super-setting with pull aparts, but that actually seemed to make it feel worse so I stopped.  The works sets here felt a touch heavier than they did on Monday.

I did manage to up the reps/set on empty bar curls.

"Conditioning." Week 5. Lower Body plus PBN

BW - 201

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
185X5
225X5
245X5

Deadlift -
135X5
185X4
225X3
275X2
315X1
335X1, 1, 1

PBN (standing) -
BarX20
65X5
75X3
85X3
90X3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

Everything went well.

The most important thing is that the volume PBN went well, and a day later my shoulder still doesn't feel any worse.  This was programmed based on Paul Carter's Base-Building book; specifically the section on building OHP for Strongman.  Every rep and set, I was focused on keeping my shoulder-blades down and together.

"Conditioning" Week 4. Upper Body

BW - 203

Deadlift -
135X5, 5
185X3
225X3
275X3
295X3

BB Rows - 175X8, 8, 8, 7

Chins - BWX12, 6, 5, 5, 5 (33 total)

Band - Pull-aparts superset with 'flyes' - somesetsXsomereps

PBN -
BarX10
55X10
65X10, 8

Rope Extensions - X20, 20, 15, 15

BB Curls - BarX35, 25, 20, 20 (100 total)

With all the little injuries, this has become less of a conditioning phase and more of a 2XWeekly-Lifting-Plus-Diet Phase.  The lesson here seems to really be, "if you get an injury that interferes with the plan, don't do the plan minus the stuff you're too injured to do, rather come up with a new plan." Because I really feel like I haven't gotten as much work in the last few weeks of trying to work around injuries with the original plan as I would have if I'd just drafted a whole new plan that incorporated the injuries.

Put the Deadlifting I was supposed to do on Squat day here.  All the reps were fast, and I was really using it as a warm-up for Rowing.

175X8 is a Rep PR on Rows.  Chining also feeling stronger.  203X12 is probably my biggest chin set since sometime last year.

Decided to completely cut out benching for a while as I try to figure out this shoulder issue.  But I'll try to cobble together work on the pressing muscles that don't aggravate it.  So I super-set pull-aparts with band flyes.  I tentatively tried some standing PBN, and almost 24 hours later my shoulder doesn't feel any worse than it did before, which is comforting.  Obviously some triceps extensions as I'm still not going near dips.

Threw in some curls because biceps.

Conditioning. Week 4. Squat, Squat, Squat

BW - 202

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
135X5
155X4
185X3
225X2
255X1
275X1, 1, 1

High Bar / Low Bar (alternating with full rest) -
225X3/3, 3/3, 3/3
185X5/5, 5/5

Fronts / High Bar (alternating with full rest) -
155X3/5, 3/5

Just didn't want to do anything but squat today.  So I threw out Deadlifts, Bench Accessory, and Abs, and just squatted until the wheels fell off.  Yes, my legs hurt today.

The interesting thing was the drop-off in strength when I switched to Front Squats.  By this point in the workout, the 155X3 sets were grinders on Front Squat, but when I switched to High Bar it was no issue.  Those reps were explosive as hell.  I only stopped at 5 reps with that weight in the hopes it would make the next front squat set more viable.  It didn't.  So what this suggests to me is that there is a much larger gap between my Front Squat and High Bar strength than there is between High Bar and Low Bar.  I don't have any idea if that's 'normal,' or if it's indicative of a weakness is my squatting strength.  Unless I want to do a lot more sessions like this and nail down that data, it might not be worth worrying about.