Missed two weeks of training due to a variety of health issues. Doctor's orders not to go to heavy pending my next specialist consultation. So a two week pivot to prepare for what will hopefully be my next dev block.
This was all fine, although (and I've noticed this before) it seems like after a complete layoff, RPE increase much more drastically between work sets.
Tried to push Bench a bit a overshot slightly. Still a slight increase in e1RM over last time.
Also pushed Chains Squats. I had adductor DOMS going into my last session with these, and knew that was limiting me. Upped the bar weight by 15# this time, and these were @8 max. Felt good.
Did NOT want to DL afterwards, however. Could have gone up in weight on these a little bit, but was just feeling gassed and ready to get it over with so stuck with the target weights.
Solid session even though I was dog tired running on only 4 hours of sleep. I got an iced coffee on the commute to the gym, and just kept topping it off with water all session to keep the caffeine drip running. Seemed like it may have helped get through.
Squats felt pretty good. The second to last single was on the heavy side, but then the top single felt as easy if not easier. I thought about going up one more, but I didn't want to push it with so much work still to do in the session. Back-offs all felt very good.
I pushed the weight up a bit more than projected on both Paused Bench and DL w/ Straps. All went pretty well. DL felt fairly heavy, but still @~8, and it IS meant as overload, so...
Video is of top sets and final work sets in each rep range.
I had a feeling that DL was going to be better than my Training Max would indicate and it was. This projects to be around the same e1RM as I ended the last block. Not sure why this happened, or why I intuited it, but it was nice to have happen. I did fatigue a bit by the end, and ended up only doing 6 reps on the last back-off set. That set is meant to be 5-7 stopping @8, so that's fine.
I haven't done beltless worksets on Squat in a while so I had no idea what to expect. This weight came in around 93% of Monday's belted Squat. I was a little nervous about heavy-ish squatting with no belt, especially after DL, but it seemed fine.
A buddy at the gym gave me an extra single-ply, Inzer Blast bench shirt a while back, and I'm trying it out this block as my bench overload movement. I cut open the back to make it easier to get on and off. I thought I might get as much as 20% out of it, but starting off this is about 105% of Wednesday's regular bench. Interested to see where this goes.
Video is of top sets and final work sets in each rep range.
Bench was a little bit difficult to get dialed-in, but I did hit my target top single relatively easily, but then the back-off weights didn't quite line up with that projection. I think execution on the top set was just above average.
I'd expected to get a lot more weight on the bar for Chain Squats. I was struggling with some lingering adductor DOMS from Monday's Squat session, and that was likely a confounder. I'd expect this to climb as I get re-acclimated to regular training. Still, the proprioception of the heavy weight in the walk out and the descent may be a bigger factor that I anticipated. I'd been hoping for an e1RM on these 5-10% over regular squat, but this was only about 0.7%.
Pause Deadlifts went slightly better than expected. Had targeted 90% of Deadlift TM. We'll see what the actual DL ends up being on Friday.
Video is of top sets and final work sets in each rep range.
Conditioning - Rower; HIIT; 20 second rounds; 5 rounds
Solid first session.
This is designed to be a higher-intensity block in a full-body layout with tightly ascending singles to 1@9 on the main lifts followed by 2X4 @8 and 1X5-7 @8, then a slightly lower intensity variation, and a variation with a bit of overload. The last back-off set on the main is 5-7 because I want to see if I can learn a little "RPE on the fly," and also to give myself elbow room for better and worse days without having to add additional work sets to hit the target.
On Squats, the expected top single target ended up being correct, although warm-ups felt good enough that I thought I might go up. However, 357.5X1 was right @8.5, so I stuck to the plan. The second back off set of 4 was noticeably more difficult than the first. That seems about right given the fatigue I would expect to have accumulated on this lift by that point. I screwed up my formula projecting the weight for the final back-off set. It should have been closer to 290, but I don't mind so much on day 1, and we'll see how it goes now that I've fixed it.
Been so long since I benched with a regular pause that I kept forgetting to pause on the first rep. These sets actually got easier as it went along, so it will be interesting to see where the offset between this and the TnG version ends up by the end of the block.
I don't think I've ever really done much conventional DL with straps. I guess-timated a 5% bump over mixed-grip, and that seems like it will be fairly close depending on where comp DL falls at the end of this first training cycle.
As always with pivot blocks, one of my objectives it to find ways to "practice" or otherwise prep for anything rather novel that may be happening in the following block. Give me the opportunity to sort of grease the groove on different grips, ROMs, etc. Squatting with chains is one of those novel things, so I took this opportunity to start seeing what setting them up is like. I've seen it done often enough both live and on video, that I had a good idea of how to do it. I think it went pretty well, and will feel confident setting them up for regular squats next week.
Trap Bar Split RDL are just another way to find single-leg Deadlift assistance. Weren't quite as awkward as I expected, but....weren't NOT awkward either, lol.
Took video of the last set of each of those movements.
