Ah… nothing like setting personal records.

Well, except perhaps a world record, but that ain’t happening right now. 😉

“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Press (working max: 130#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x55
  • 1x5x65
  • 1x3x80
  • 1x3x90 (work)
  • 1x3x105
  • 1x6x125 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Asst. #2 – Pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

1x6x125 on the Press is a PR in every way: never done that much weight for any number of reps. Last cycle’s week 3 was 1x7x115, so this is a nice bump! It’s good to get stronger. As Rip says, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.”

But you know what? I just realized something. I messed up.

I was only supposed to do 1 x >3 x 120 today. 125 is next workout. Heh. Maybe I’ll do 130. Why the heck not? 🙂 Sure there are physical limits to strength, but there are mental limits too… now if I can just break through these same mental limits when it comes to squatting.

Anyways, worked well, felt good, glad to have really blown the PR out of the water and will set another one next Press workout.

Assistance pressing was good, only had some pausing during the last few reps of the last set, so I’ll stick with 60# (1 min. rest between sets) and go to 65 during deload week.

Same with the supine grip pulldowns: only slight pause between last reps of last set, so I’ll go to 120 during deload week.

Oh on that note… I took a slightly different grip on pressing. I’ve noticed my shoulders feeling a bit odd, and I think it’s because my grip was too narrow, and so the moment I started pressing out of the hole my arms would twist and my elbows would be pointing “outward” instead of forward. Granted, eventually they do rotate, but it was a little early and causing some pain. My grip now is about the same width as my pulldown grip width, with the outside edge of my thumbs about even with the outside edge of my shoulders… that “just wider than shoulder width” grip. Felt a lot better today, pressed up and the rotation was a bit more natural later on in the movement.

On rope, I forgot to work on the running in place stuff (bad John), but I did pick up the pace and tried to almost as fast as I could… wasn’t all out, but close… just wanted to have enough in reserve to ensure I made it through. I’m sure I can pick up the pace even more, so long as I keep my coordination and don’t sacrifice rope speed for lots of fumbling about. The interesting thing? I felt a lot less tired. I did make a concerted effort to deeply breathe throughout the set, and all that extra O2 may have done the trick.

Anyways, good workout. Starts the day off on a happy note.