Things are getting dialed in.

“Week 2”

• “3 reps” – Bench Press (working max: 215#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x85
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x3x150 (work)
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x7x195
• Asst. #1 – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 125
• Asst. #2 – 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows
  • 5 x 10 x 55
• GPP – Elliptical
  • Tabata style (20 sec. fast (140-150 strides per minute), 10 sec. slow (90-100 strides per minute)
  • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
  • 1 Tabata set
  • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)

Today’s bench press was good. Last time I stumbled upon what felt like a “sweet spot” in terms of where to plant my feet so I can maximize full-body tension and pressing through my feet. I focused on that today and while I don’t think I have the spot nailed, it was fairly good and I was fairly solid throughout all pressing sets. It will still need refinement.

One cool thing from today? Many times I will look at the work I have to do, then look at the work I’ve done. Because I want to ensure progress, I’ll then figure what I at least have to do in order to feel like I made progress. For instance, today’s big weight was 195, so how many reps did I do before with 195? or if I hadn’t moved 195 recently, what did I do that was in the ballpark? Last cycle I did 190 for 7, so a little math says that 195×6 would be about the same. But sometimes I get too caught up in the numbers and it’s not healthy. Today, just due to lack of time, I never looked at how much work I needed to do today. I thought about it for a moment while at the gym, but then opted to not care because it doesn’t. Just move the weight and move whatever I end up moving. I pushed out 7 reps, which is actually a little bit better than before. A little stronger, a little better, and didn’t have to think or worry about it. Good thing. 🙂

I have opted to drop the reverse ez bar curls for my forearm work. I get enough on deadlift day and some on press day, so frankly I don’t need to bother here. Just dropping it entirely.

Didn’t Agile 8. Had to get moving. I’ll probably regret not at least foam rolling.

On the elliptical. I put the incline at “10” and upped the resistance to “12”. Pace was in the 90’s strides per minute for “slow” and in the 140’s for “fast”. I felt like I wanted to do slightly faster, like 95-105 slow and 150’s for fast, but I figured to just slowly up it, keep things in range, see how it does. I might increase it a bit, but for now today’s run was actually good. I felt worked, heart rate was pumping, legs were tired. I tell you, the hardest part is doing the 2 minutes of cooldown…. just feels like it takes forever. But this rate feels alright, and what with squats on Wednesday I’ll stick with this and see how my legs feel afterwards. I think I’m closing in on a groove, and will just slowly up the difficulty as my body adapts.