Not sure what to make of today.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 1

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x3x145
  • 1x5x160 (work)
  • 1x5x180
  • 1x7x205
• Assistance – Bench Press
  • 5 x 10/10/8/10/18 x 145/145/135/115/95
• Assistance – DB Rows
  • 4 x 15 x 50
• And then 50 JM presses with a 45# bar, and 50 face pulls with 30#

I’m not sure what to make of today. The 6th and 7th reps I had to crank out. When I look at my logs, on paper it doesn’t seem like I’m progressing. I think I am, because last time I did 205 itself was cycle 16 (mark 2) on my 3-week and got 5 reps. So yeah, stronger, but comparing numbers I’ve done lately by that 1RM calculation method and it all seems stagnant. We’ll see how it pans out, I guess.

Also, I was really good with form… until the last set. Tight. Feet planted, and I remembered a squat cue about lifting your toes off the ground and pointing them up, which forces weight back onto your heels, which is what I want for the push here. When I put my belt on, I was having deep breaths, really pressing into the belt. Really good… until that last work set, and everything went to jelly, especially my legs. WTF?? I think it may be mental. I get the weight in my hands, and a seed of doubt or “this is heavy” or something else fucks with my head, sows a negative seed, and blamo. I gotta work on that.

And so, it really drained me for my assistance work. I didn’t care so much about the weight as I did the reps, so I just dropped set the whole way down. Geez.

Opted to switch to DB Rows. Yeah, my lower back doesn’t feel as beat up, and I feel it more in my upper back. Yeah, I’m going to keep on this “heavy, but higher reps” thing for a while. I had no idea what today would be, so I just picked up a 50# and did 15 to see how it would go sets across. 4 sets with 60 seconds rest in between worked me decently enough for today.

Well… we’ll see how it goes.