That wasn’t what I expected.

I expected to hit the 15 reps on the AMRAP, but instead… I hit the upright. On the 13th rep I hit the upright, totally threw off the groove — and I had to keep things from falling apart — 14th rep was a mess, and I only got to 14.5 and then had to roll the bar down my chest. I haven’t had to do that in a long time. Upon reflection, I should have stopped after the 13th rep, let things settle, then continue, but I didn’t. I felt “so close” to 15, numerically, and the bump lost my gauge/feel on where I was in terms of ability/effort/gas-in-the-tank. Ah well… I put the bar back on and kept going.

One thing that continues to be reinforced in me is that I get more out of back work when I use moderate weights and really really focus on the back muscles doing the work. I can’t just heave through it, I have to basically think to move from the shoulders/elbows and contract the back muscles. When I do that, I get a lot out of it. That said, I got a fair bit today. I don’t know what happened, but some 10# bumper plates reappeared in the gym, so doing the rows with 125 was able to be done from a reasonable height. That allowed me to rest the bar on the ground between reps and get a start from a dead-stop, which worked better than the hanging stuff I was doing before, likely because I wasn’t letting it go 100% of the way down so as not to annoy my shoulder by the hanging weight.

Anyways, all in all, not a bad day… just not what I expected. But sometimes those are when you learn more. 🙂

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 100 x 5
  • 125 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 190 x 2
  • 215 x 1
  • 190 x 14 (AMRAP)
  • 190 x 6 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 20
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 11
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 9
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 110 x 23
  • 110 x 18
  • 110 x 15
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 45 x 21
  • 45 x 17
  • 45 x 15