Time to start being nice to my shoulders

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

• Work Set – Press (working max: 150#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x60
  • 1x5x75
  • 1x3x90
  • 1x5x115 (work)
  • 1x3x130
  • 1x5x145
• Assistance – Pull-ups (band assisted)
  • 3 x 10/10/5 x BW
• Other stuff (see below)

Despite my shoulder aches and pains, I still Pressed. Getting 5 reps with 145 is acceptable, given I got 5 with 140 last cycle. Looking back over past history, it’s certainly not the best I’ve done, but it’s in line and is progress back to where I started.

Certainly my technique is getting better. “Tight” is the cue I live by here… everything needs to be tight: grip, wrists, torso, glutes, lats, quads, hams… you name it, everything. Helps tremendously.

But that all said, I didn’t do much else today. I did some pull-ups, then a couple very-high-rep sets of pressdowns and hammer curls.

The interesting part? I finished off with a couple high-rep sets with very light weight of lateral raises. Why? Well, again it’s a shoulder thing. I want a little more delt work. I adore upright rows; they’ve always been a favorite, since I was a teenager, because they produce so much in the medial delts and traps (and some biceps and grip too, what’s not to like, right?). But there’s no question that it eventually causes me some shoulder pains. So I’m going to have to give them up, again. And while lat raises haven’t always been friendly to me either, well… I have some greater posture issues that I need to improve upon. If I am standing in a solid and proper posture, the lat raises work out ok. If they start to be weird, it’s a reminder to correct my posture. I think I may well keep lat raises in for a while… just VERY light and VERY high rep.

Next week is deload. Again, I think I’m going to do a heavy-duty deloading. I really want to give my body a rest. I may go only twice, and do like a squat/bench and dead/press thing with maybe like 5×10 with a 50% weight or something… and that’s all…. if even that. Maybe 3×10 or 5×5. Just something for the blood flow and warmth, and keeping the groove. But otherwise, Ir eally want to rest up.

Diet wise too… I’ll be keeping carbs fairly low until the Sunday evening prior to starting cycle 18. I’ll have a little carb after any workout, and I’ll have “normal carbs” with supper. But no splurging or anything and doing “heavy backloads” or the like.