“200 pounds is always 200 pounds” – Henry Rollins

Indeed it is.

“Week 3”

• 5/3/1 – Bench Press (working max: 210#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x5x160 (work)
  • 1x3x180
  • 1x6x200 (PR)
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 120
• Asst. #2 – DB Rows
  • 5 x 10 x 50
• DeFranco Agile 8

Today was good and bad.

The good was setting a PR of 1x6x200. Broke the 200# barrier on bench press. First in my life. Kinda cool. Yeah, 300 is in my sights, but first, 205. And 6 reps, I can take that.

I’ve been noticing, when I bench the large weights, I lose all lower body stability. Every other time I work hard to keep my feet planted and my legs tight. But I pick up that 200 and everything went south. I don’t know why. I catch myself and work to plant it, but it’s never as solid and tight as it should be. Something to work on.

But after that point, the workout went downhill. I just felt gassed. The 50’s on the rows felt so heavy today for some reason. I didn’t sprint, originally due to the fact it’s raining and very slippery out (almost wiped out on the sidewalk leaving the gym), but kinda glad to skip it if I’m so pooped… why further the exhaustion. On the Agile 8 I just wasn’t feeling it. I did get only 5 hours of sleep last night… kinda for a stupid reason. Went to bed late due to a need to talk with Wife about some stuff, but then woke up around 3 AM for a bathroom break and I didn’t let myself go back to bed because I knew if I did I wouldn’t get up until 5:30 or so and that means I wouldn’t be in the gym until 7 and that’s too late. I wanted to get in early today. So, likely a mistake on my part to not have rested up well last night.

I’m happy for the PR, but unhappy about the rest of the workout. Oh well. It happens. Chalk it up, move on.

I have been thinking about some adjustments to my program, what with my next cycle starting soon. Been reading the second edition of the Wendler 5/3/1 book and it got me thinking about a few things. I’ll probably have a rambling post at some point about it all. 🙂