For the Wife

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 24, week 4

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: whatevs)
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 5
  • 225 x 5
  • 275 x 5

• Work Set – Press (working max: whatevs)
  • 45 x 10 x 2 sets
  • 65 x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 95 x 5

• Lat pulldowns
  • 90 x 12 x 4

Today was Wife’s second day in the gym. Following our quasi-Starting Strength routine, today she did goblet squats, press, and well… I don’t know what the formal name would be for them, but it’s bodyweight rows where you are almost parallel to the ground, feet on the ground, arms hanging from a bar, and you pull yourself up. Modifying slightly due to her strength levels, and other things. But all good stuff.

And so, I did a similar routine… deadlifts, pressing, and lat pulldowns. I didn’t really worry about the weight. Just put plates on the bar and move some.

A few things on my end.

First, I’ve added “walking” lunges in my warm up. So I’ll walk across the length of the gym doing lunges. Not too shallow, not too deep, the sort of structure where when I’m down everything’s at right angles. I’m finding this is helping me get a little more limber and functionally loose in a day. My knees don’t feel so weird just during the day if I kneel down and have to get back up. Weird that I can squat so much with a bar on my back, but kneel down and get up in the course of a day and my legs and knees hate me. The lunges seem to be helping.

Second, I think my arm/elbow pain may be due to weights and compression… i.e. things that are explicitly hitting my elbow. When I was pressing today, the compression of my forearm against my biceps when in the rack position really seemed to make that arm pain flare up. A few sets of pull-ups to demo to Wife didn’t help either. I am thinking when I start proper cycle up next week, I might change my back work to some things I’ve read in Wendler’s books. That during my 5 warm-up sets I’ll superset with something uber-light for up to maybe 20 reps, like face pulls. Skip work during my 3 work sets. Then during my first assistance set (e.g. incline bench, more pressing) I’ll superset with the heavier back work, like rows or lat pulldowns. I think pullups may have to go back on the shelf until this fades… maybe, maybe not, I’ll play it by ear because I’d rather do pull-ups. I also might give up on more pressing and do dips… that might not help things, but we’ll see. I kinda like doing dips… so we’ll see.

Just going to play it by ear, so I can get my arms and elbows not being in pain.