Starting the new year off right.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 27, week 1

• Work Set – Bench Press
  • 45 x 5
  • 45 x 5
  • 90 x 5
  • 110 x 5
  • 130 x 3
  • 145 x 5
  • 165 x 5
  • 185 x 10
• Face Pulls (superset with the bench press warm-up sets)
  • 40 x 15 x 5
• Close-grip Bench Press
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 9
  • 135 x 6
  • 135 x 6
• T-Bar Rows (superset with the close-grip bench press)
  • 100 X 10 X 5
• Barbell Curls
  • 50 X 10 X 3
• Foam Rolling

Kiddos wanted to ring in the new year, so at 12:01 I headed to bed. I fully intended on still hitting the gym… was more important for me to get to the gym and keep with the program, than to stay up late and drink and party. My priorities. Alas, staying up to midnight is still WAY past my bedtime, so I knew I’d have to sleep a little later than usual… and I slept even later than that. Just couldn’t get out of bed, way too tired (listen to the body!). But eventually things felt good and off I went.

I am glad I did the full reset. I mean, I figured on my bench press that of all the lifts, that would be the one I would NOT need to reset because the way I was progressing there was still getting more than prescribed reps and doing well. I knew if I reset bench then my weights would really drop and my reps would fly up. Sure enough, only 185 today? Geez… that feels like a massive step back from doing 245 *sigh* And once I got to 10 reps, I just stopped. Oh well, I figure it’ll be good for me. 🙂 More reps, more time to work on technique, right? Find the positive.

That said, close-grips were at 125# last time and well… I was to do 130# but 130 is one of those weights I hate because man, I have a 45 and a 25 on the bar, now I have to strip everything off, then put everything on just to get 130. I’m OK with 125, but can I just skip 130 and go to 135? It’s easier to just strip that one 25 off. Yeah I know… lazy. Whatever. 🙂 So I went ahead and jumped to 135 for the close grips. I’m good with that and happy with how it went.

Opted to drop the seated cable rows. While CarbNite-ing, it’s just too much load.

Didn’t bother with any direct triceps work either… just hit some bb curls to continue working on bringing up my biceps.

Not a bad day, really…. but….

I’m still very sore from Monday’s squat session. That kicked my ass, literally. Shows what a difference eating makes when it comes to recovery. I’ll find a groove tho. One bummer is that somehow my old ankle injury reared up again, so it’s kinda painful to walk or put much weight on my left foot. Icing is helping, but you can see obvious swelling. This usually goes away with a little rest, but man… with the food deprivation and such, well… we’ll see. I am thinking if it keeps up like this, an MRI may be in my future… somehow this time around it’s bothering me enough to want to look into that.