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.
Since I'm dieting and have been having these weird quad pain issues, I decided to just open it up and go sort of full auto-regulation on my programming. Gonna try and stop worrying about the specific weight on the bar, the specific reps/sets, and just try to hone my ability to hit RPEs. I've missed enough reps anyway.
Generally, I know what movements I'm going to do that day (although I may need to change the order to make the "main" movement first), and I'll have a target rep range for each movement. Sets of 1-3, 2-4, 4-6, etc. And on the main movements, a top set range and then back-offs. The straight-sets and back-off sets will all be RPE Stop sets. For "light" movements like Pause Squats, I will shoot to keep rest times ~2 minutes to limit total number of sets. "Medium" movements, ~2-3 minutes. Main or "heavy" movements will have ~2 minutes between test /final warm-up set and top set, 2-3 minutes between top set and first volume / back-off set, and then ~2 minutes between volume sets.
So for Low Bar Pause Squats, I was targeting 4-6 reps around 275. Test set/last warm-up of 245X5@6 pointed me right at 275, and that worked well. My intent is to go for @9 RPE Stops, but I've only been doing 3 sets on this day, and figured a week to pivot into higher volume might not be terrible, especially since I'm still dealing with quad issues. So I hit a 4th set @ 8.5 and called that good enough for this week.
Bench was a little all over the place. Was looking for a top set of 2-4 reps in the 235 range. Went for a test set with 210 (90% of target) and felt like it was almost @8 after 2 reps. So I added 2.5% and tried again, but this time got X3@7. So either I wasn't fully warmed up for 210, or my technique was off. Anyway, this ended up being more predictive. Took the 5% jump to 225 and it was just a hair over @8 for 3 reps. Back-off sets ended up getting to @9 pretty quickly. This is why I might need to move the main movement to the beginning of the training session. Just in case adding additional volume to the initial movement of the day may negatively impact ability to do volume on the primary movement.
Block-Pulls went okay although I overshot the first work-set, and ended up with a top set and back-offs (not the plan, but whatevs. AUTO-REGULATED). 305 is heavier than the test sets I've been doing, but this felt @6 and this movement has been moving really well the last couple of weeks. But 335 was definitely not a weight I was going to pull for sets across. Backed down to 317.5, and that felt like a weight I was going to pull all day, but with the 2-3 minute rests, I got to the end fairly quickly, which is how I planned for this to work. So yay me. Tried to get video of all top sets and final volume sets, but missed the Bench top set.
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.
