Today was so-so, progressing, but not great.
Squats
- 2x5x45 (warmup)
- 1x5x80
- 1x3x125
- 1x2x165
- 3x5x210 (work)
Yes, I opted to do the same thing for another (third) workout. I’m not feeling it. I’m not sure if it’s recovery or what. I could hypothesize on a lot of things, but I opted to not push myself too hard… let’s see how it goes, then fare from there. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. That said, I felt good about how this work set went. It didn’t feel light of course, but it didn’t feel horrible. Next workout I’ll go to 215.
Bench Press
- 2x5x45 (warmup)
- 1x5x80
- 1x3x110
- 1x2x140
- 3x5x160 (work)
This felt good. I’m getting more comfortable with the “whole body” involvement, finding better foot position and getting good heel drive. I feel my progress here is still doing fine.
Chin-ups
- 1x10xbw
- 1x10xbw
- 1x8xbw
I don’t know what gives here but since my body just doesn’t seem to want to do high reps fine…. I’ll go with that emotion. I’m going to shift my goals slightly and work to 3×10 across. Besides, I’m tired of doing these “inverted row” things. The way to get strong at something? Do that something. I’m not doing that something, just something close to it. No question it’s helping me get closer to being able to do that something but… I tried today. I tried a dead-hang chin-up. I was almost there, but not quite. *sigh* Well, I’m weighing about 240# right now (estimated 20% body fat)… if I can keep up with some weight loss too, that’ll help. 😉
But I’ve decided that once I get up to 3×10’s of these inverted rows, I’m going to start on real chin/pulls, even if I can’t do one. My current thinking (and this may well change) is to work to have 3 sets of 5 reps. But what those reps entail will vary. I will always start with a dead-hang and work to get a full chin/pull in. The rep only counts if my chin goes above the bar and/or chest touches the bar… missing it by 1/2″ is still missing it and doesn’t count. I will get as many full reps as I can. If I cannot get a set of 5 full reps, then the remainder of the reps will be done as pure negatives. It’s my understanding they will help towards getting full reps so hey, I’ll try it. So that means if I struggle on the first rep and can’t get it, I then have 5 negatives to do. Once I get a full rep and then struggle for rep 2, that means 4 negatives.
We’ll see how this goes.
And I guess, consider it also motivation for dropping down to maybe 15% or 10% bodyfat. 😉
Commentary
I’m still feeling a little worn out. Recovery? Diet? Not sure what, but I wasn’t feeling gung ho so I opted to do the same squat workout as before. I did feel alright with that set, so I will increase next workout. Trying to figure out why I feel worn, but that will come.
In the end, still happy to be going to the gym tho. My body generally feels good. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 
How’s your sleep? How’s your food, both pre- and post-workout? You’re still decompressing from work, too, and that makes a big difference… Those things all affect recovery… How much time off between workouts?
For chin ups… do they have a Gravitron (or similar) machine at your gym? It’s a weight assisted pull-up and dip machine. You can use that, or a jump-stretch type band attached to the bar to give you an assisted pull-up or chin-up – that will get you doing the motion and building muscle (as long as you pick the right amount of assist), and get you away from inverted rows… FWIW 🙂
Negatives are good, too – realize that eccentric contraction (lengthening the muscle while it’s contracting) is extremely good at beating them up. Much better than concentric contraction. So, be careful with negatives – they’re a powerful tool.
My guess is it’s being tired and drained. It’s only been a week off work, but ever since my last day of work I’ve been working, just on non-day-job things. Have a to-do list a mile long and every day I wake up and dive into the list and I’m hitting that from sunrise to sunset. So I know I’m pooped, and I figure that’s what it’s all about.
No Gravitron nor bands or anything. I know those approaches and I’m just going to have to use a bench to get myself up there… no real way to do assists. Thus, negatives, and why for now I’m only going to try for 3×5 and see how it goes. Who knows.. I might even drop it down to 3×3 at first.