The more I do, the less I do.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 17, week 2

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 230#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x3x140
  • 1x3x165 (work)
  • 1x3x185
  • 1x6x210
• Assistance – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10 x 135
• Assistance – Pendlay Row
  • 5 x 12/12/10/10/10 x 115
• Assistance – Stuff
  • JM Press
  • Hammer Curls
  • 1 set, light weight, as many reps as I could muster (didn’t count, but somewhere in the teens I’m sure)

As I’m doing this 4x week thing, I’m finding myself wanting to pare back my sessions from what I was doing 3x week. Things are taking on a more true “BBB” template style.

I felt really good with my benching today, despite my head being elsewhere.. but at least this elsewhere was good stuff and exciting stuff. No, it wasn’t a PR, but looking at past numbers both before and after my technique change and this was good.

In terms of back work then, I figured rows would be the right thing. Keep things in the same plane as bench press. But I’m kinda tired of dumbbell rows so why not a barbell instead. And not just any flavor of rowing, but Pendlay. Why that version? Mostly because of the straight and flat back approach to things, and because of the “from a dead stop on the floor” approach. The gym happens to have a set of 10# bumper plates, so I used those to give me good spacing off the floor. Added then a 25# on each side, there’s the 115#, and away I went. Boy, I could feel it in my lats… which is a big reason for this flavor of row. I’m sold.

I couldn’t not do a little arm pumping tho. 🙂 But I just picked 1 exercise, light-ish weight, and just cranked out as many reps as I could… didn’t really care what, just a lot (tho not like a 5# weight and I did 100 reps and gave up cause I was bored… no, I probably got somewhere in the 15-25 range somewhere… didn’t count, didn’t really care).

It’s always nice to keep it simple.