Holy crap! I can do chin-ups! 🙂

“Week “

• 3 reps – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x3x105 (work)
  • 1x3x120
  • 1x7x135
• Asst. #1 – Press
  • 5 x 10 x 75
  • Supersetted with chin-ups, 5x1xbw
• Asst. #2 – Supinated Close-grip Pulldowns
  • 4 x 10 x 140
  • 1 x 10/3/3 x 140 (rest-pause set)

Holy crap, Beavis! I did chin-ups today. 🙂

I just haven’t been able to do chin-ups (supinated grip, palms facing you). I’m not strong enough, I’m heavy. The (Wendler) recommended thing is to do chin/pull-ups in between each set of pressing movements. Well, lacking the ability to do them I haven’t worked them in, and much of my work has been towards being able to do them. I started doing this supersetting last cycle but then forgot to keep doing it. When I did it then, the goal was to do at least 1 chin after each set of assistance pressing, and if I couldn’t do a chin then make it a negative. Last time I did it I got 2×1 then had to do 3×1-negatives.

Well today… it was pretty simple straight 5×1 across. My bodyweight hasn’t changed much, so I’ve apparently gotten stronger. 🙂

I was quite thrilled. The first chin I did was so easy. And this isn’t some sort of “chin-over” where you stick your chin into the air and attempt to throw it just barely over the top of the bar. No, I want to go full, all the way up, bar coming to the chest/clavicle area. No swinging nor kipping (the debate about kipping pull-ups will rage elsewhere). I didn’t go 100% full range of motion tho, because a true dead-hang causes too much stress on my shoulder socket, so I need to keep tension and I’m probably 5-10 degrees already pulling into the motion… so it’s almost all the way, as close as I can get to all the way without removing tension. Maybe that contributed to my success today, I don’t know. But I was thrilled. The chins came easy, and only had a slight effect on the pulldowns. Next workout I’ll start going for 5×2 across and see how it goes. Slow but sure. 🙂 This has been a long time in coming, and I’m happy to finally be here.

In other news….

I actually didn’t feel all that with it today. Mentally I just did not feel strong. My warm-up press sets felt heavy. But once I started hitting the work set, while my mind may not have been there my body sure was. Cranking out 7 reps with 135 is good progress. That may have kicked me in the pants, because I sure felt strong the rest of the workout, as you can read above.

I did forget to do the last set of assistance pressing rest-pause. Oh well.

I didn’t do any GPP or rolling today. I had to get home because a Time-Warner Cable tech is supposedly coming “between 8 AM and noon” to finally fix my broken Internet connection. I knew if I didn’t hustle to be home by 8, he’d show up at 8; if I actually am ready for him at 8, he’ll show up at 1. Of course. 😉

But today was good. I’m still smiling about the chin-ups.