You just keep pressing through the pain.

• 5/3/1 Press (training max 110#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x45
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x3x65
  • 1x3x80 (work)
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x7x100
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5x10x45
• Asst. #2 – Chinups
  • 1 x almost 1 x bw, then 3 negatives
  • 4 x 3 negatives x bw
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope — all 8 reps single hop

This was an interesting workout. First, it’s “week 2” of the 5/3/1 cycle, so the working weight goes up and the reps go to 3. Overall work volume is lower, of course, but strength feels good… 7 reps at the max work weight for today wasn’t too shabby for me, and as always a couple were left in the tank. Going to the assistance press work, certainly the 60 seconds of rest this time around was better than 30 last time but… is it perhaps because of the longer rest period? is it because the work volume wasn’t as intense? because I’m getting used to things? stronger? Hard to tell for sure right now. Point is, should my assistance weights remain the same during the entire cycle? or should they also increase as the weeks progress? Not sure. I don’t think there’s any formal rule here, just what works for me. My feeling is, it’s assistance work, I don’t need it to exhaust me and impact recovery, so just keep it stable for the cycle then up it next cycle. But we’ll see as we go along… probably need numerous 5/3/1 cycles under my belt before I can say for sure.

Chins… geez… I am a wuss. But I know my shortcomings and am willing to work on them. 🙂 I worked to hold myself up at the top a little longer, at least for a count of 1 before I started my descent… hold myself up high! then lower for a count of 7. But that’s a big bump from last chin session and I’m not sure if that was more stress or what but on the last rep of the last couple sets I just couldn’t… I’d step off the bench and immediately start a controlled drop to the ground, maybe 2 seconds… resisting as best I could but I couldn’t resist much… the muscles were tapped. I’ll keep this up for the rest of the cycle but I am thinking that since my weak point seems to be the last half of the eccentric motion that next cycle maybe I’ll move to using the lat pulldown machine but in a chin-style grip and work it hard to ensure that last half of the motion is worked… I might even only do partial reps from the half-way point to the “chinned-up” point to just work that part out. Don’t know, we’ll see. But if there’s a weak point, that’s what needs to be specifically addressed.

Jump rope was cool. Previously I was thinking to bump this session to alternating single and double hops on each rep, debating if I should start with single (i.e. fresh) or double (i.e. end with a single when I’m pooped). I opted to start with a single so I got things pumping from the get go, but then changed my mind — I did all 8 reps as single hop. That pumped things up for me for sure… my feet and calves and lower quads were hating it (the quads and adductors and such are sore as heck from Monday’s squat workout). My body wanted to quit but no…. I just kept pushing, because it’s all in my head.

That’s really the big thing that’s coming out of so much of this: keep going. There’s so many reasons I want to quit, be it my mind saying “the body is tapped” but knowing that I’m still physically able to — because if I’m truly tapped then my body will stop on its own — to ego things, because hey… when the gym is packed this morning with a bunch of the strongest guys in the gym and you can’t do a fucking chin-up and your muscles are tapped and you don’t want to do that last rep…. you do it anyways, because you have to. Because you know you won’t get stronger, you won’t overcome the obstacles, unless you forge ahead. Like anything in life.