Time to deload.

“Week 4”

• Deload – Deadlift (working max: 305#)
  • 2x5x125
  • 2x5x155
  • 2x5x185

• Deload – Press (working max: 145#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x5x90
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 70
• Asst. #2 – Supinated Close-grip Pulldowns
  • 5 x 10 x 130
• GPP – Elliptical
  • Tabata style (20 sec. 150-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
  • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
  • 1 Tabata set
  • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
• Grip
  • 3x10xT, 2 sec. hold between reps
  • 3x3x1, 2 sec. hold between reps, 10 sec. hold on the last rep

In previous cycles, I handled deload along the normal schedule. After I got the 2nd edition of Wendler’s 5/3/1 book, that made me take another look at scheduling the “3 days per week” cycle. Yes, it was not a typo, you are supposed to double-up on the deload week to make it last just a week, not a week and a half. So press and deadlift end up getting merged onto the same day during deload week. But I figured as well, that would make quite a long workout with all the assistance work for both days, so I opted to modify and do what assistance I thought mattered most. In this case, I kept in the assistance pressing and the lat pulldowns. I don’t NEED the Good Morning work as much as I need the press work, and the pulldowns let me control impact to my shoulder better than the hanging leg-hip raises. So there we go.

Nothing really to write home about. It’s deload week. Take it easy. I did my work. I did not rest-pause things (again, deload). I did spend a little more time on the elliptical… probably had 4 minutes of cooldown instead. Had earbuds in listening to music and “I like this song, want to hear it to the end, just keep going”. 🙂