At best, I’d give today a C+. A PR, but still a C+.

“Week 3”

• 5/3/1 – Bench Press (working max: 205#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x3x125
  • 1x5x155 (work)
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x195 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 115
• Asst. #2 – 1 arm dumbbell rows
  • 5 x 10 x 45
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Today… well, sure I set a PR on bench press, but I hated how it went down.

As soon as I pulled the bar out of the rack, I started shaking. I expect maybe a little shaking because it is a new and heavy weight, but this was ridiculous. In fact, my knees started to shake like I was trying to work a bellows between my knees! WTF? I got to rep 5 and knew this wasn’t going to continue without something going horribly wrong, so I just racked it. Yeah, 5 reps @ 195 is still respectable and still a PR for me, but what the hell went wrong with my body?

So during assistance benching I worked to plant the hell out of my legs. My legs were pushing pushing pushing… so much that after each set my legs felt worked! They had a burn, and by the end of the 5th set my legs actually felt like they had a good isometric workout. But while I pushed, my body didn’t feel coordinated as a whole. My cue has been “tight” but it’s just not all there.

And that’s really what’s going on… it’s more of my mental game failing. I just wasn’t there.

Furthermore, I’m thinking too much. I’m putting too much thought into everything. I picked up a copy of “Powerlifting – Year 1” and had a bunch of “bench tips” on the brain… that is wrong. I’m going into my heaviest week, this is NOT the time to be futzing with form. Stick with what I have, for better or for worse, don’t be fucking around with things. I can futz during deload week, week 1, maybe week 2… but on week 3 I need to just focus on moving the damn weight and setting an awesome PR. I had too much going on in my head.

There’s just too much going on in my head, period… be it lifting form, doubt, day job, night job, my other jobs, life, family, whatever…. too many things. It’s not an excuse, it’s reality. And I need to fix it. But I guess I have to admit I’m not sure how. Or at least, I’m not sure yet about how to immediately turn it on and off on demand, so when I have to get under the bar, it’s immediately as it should be.

Anyways… chalk today up and move on.

On rows, speaking of the powerlifting eBook, I changed it slightly. Instead of rowing with elbows in, upper arm running essentially parallel to torso and weight pulled to stomach, I put the elbows out at about a 45º angle and pulling the weight to my lower chest — about the same angle and location as the bar is at the bottom of the bench press. This is a better angle of attack for my needs, but it worked me a bit more — posterior deltoid peeded out sooner. Good thing.

And jump rope? Geez… I think I was just so bummed that again, I wasn’t mentally there and couldn’t jump worth a damn. Did my best, and that was that.

Gotta get over it all. Wednesday is another day.

One longer-term thing? I had been tinkering with what I’ll do next cycle, in terms of jumps and so on. I’m going to perhaps go rather conservative… maybe even less of a jump than normal? Make sure I’m solid. That’s more important than trying to hit ego-satisfying numbers. Putting up a solid performance is a lot more ego-satisfying.