Sometimes you just gotta listen to your body.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Squat (working max: 280#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x140
  • 1x3x170
  • 1x5x185 (work)
  • 1x5x215
  • 1x7x240

• 5 reps – Bench Press (working max: 225#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x3x135
  • 1x5x150 (work)
  • 1x5x170
  • 1x9x195
• Asst. #1 – Lat pulldowns (pronated grip, hands just wider than shoulder-width apart)
  • 3 x 10 x 130
• Asst. #2 – Back Raises (hands behind head)
  • 3 x 15 x BW
• Asst. #3 – DB Bench Press
  • 3 x 10 x 120
• Asst. #4 – Face Pulls
  • 3 x 12 x 80/70/70

Today was pretty good. I realized that my head wasn’t in it… but it wasn’t somewhere else either. I was just “there” and that lack of too much thinking one way or the other was good. 🙂

While squatting I found myself still falling forward out of the hole. I was trying to get back to thinking about driving my head into the bar but trying not to forget about the big belly breath and pushing hard into my belt, and well… trying to do both I ended up half-assing both. I need to pick one, and I think it needs to be the belly breath since that really tightens up the torso and should have residual help with the head. But still, felt alright with how things went. I wanted to do 7 and got 7. Basically, I wanted improvement over whatever I had done before with 240, and I did that.

Bench was good too. Working on my placement of my body on the bench, for better leg drive. Wasn’t as stable today as I was last week, but I’ll keep experimenting until I find my spot. I set a goal of 8 reps with 195 and got 9, so I’m happy.

Then… I called an audible.

Whatever I did in my shoulder/upper back last week, it’s mostly gone but I can still wake up in the morning and feel something. While I’ve been working on it, it’s still there and I opted to not push it. So I decided to do lat pulldowns instead of chins. But I also opted to vary it and try pronated grip. I took a grip that was natural — drop your arms at your side, then just bend at the elbow. I find my thumbs end up spaced just on the outside of my shoulders. So that’s the grip I took. Just natural grip. I had no idea what weight to use, just picked 130, but that was good enough for my needs today.

I also had been thinking about doing 4 sets, but after the first set thought no, just stick with 3. I think it was a combination of things. First, I could feel it and knew 3 would be enough and 4 would probably be too much. Well, Wendler is about working submaximally so you can have continual gains for a longer period of time. I was also reading a bunch of DoggCrapp stuff this past weekend and you can tell Dante is about doing more with less. Granted, I’m not doing DC stuff at all, but I am seeing fair gains the past few weeks. So what if I don’t feel pumped to the max when I leave the gym? I’m apparently getting good results, so why screw with it? Why risk working myself too much, screwing up recovery, and stalling or regressing? Screw it. Stick with 3.

But I did also opt to NOT do chins while I squat. The only reason I did that was for volume since I can’t do many chins, but again, if I can keep doing what I’m doing, with the assistance work being a “circuit” and really pushing that fast and hard? eh…. the lat pulldowns will make up for it for a bit.

I am thinking after this cycle I might take a week off as as “Jack shit deload”. But we’ll see at the end of the cycle. 🙂 Yes, feeling a little bit beat up. Tossed around the idea before I left for the gym this morning, but no… now is not the time nor proper motivational reason. It should be calculated, not just because I’m dragging.