Best part? The cooler weather — had to wear a sweatshirt on my walk to the gym. 🙂

All in all, going well. Pressing was fine. My “dizzy” issues of course are worse when I’m defatting and running low carb. Today when I did my setup, I got everything tensed up, deep breaths, all helps me get started — but then I totally relaxed and let things fade. As soon as things felt normal, I quickly tensed up and unracked. No rushing, but just trying to “get dizzy” when I know it’s safe and controllable. That helped. Going to have to continue exploring that approach.

But pressing was fine. Goal was 5 reps (again, trying really pare back), but things felt so good I went for a 6th.

I am happy with the way I’m doing pulldowns down. I read something the other day that put it in perspective — when you just start doing pull-ups, if you’re cold well… would you ever do a 5RM cold? Because that’s what you’re doing! No wonder I was hurting. So this warm-up/work-up has really helped. Plus the added volume for sure is good for me.

I’m still dialing in where my weights and reps should be on this “massing” approach, but it’s all going well and about as expected.

Things are progressing, both in the gym and in terms of my defluffing. A little slower, of course, but so far so good. Still early.

My own massing template, based upon 5/3/1 SST and some Paul Carter principles

• Press
  • bar x whatever
  • 70 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
  • 85 x 5
  • 100 x 3
  • 120 x 3 (work sets superset with pulldowns)
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 6
• Close-Grip Bench Press
  • 145 x 10 (sets superset with pulldowns)
  • 145 x 10
  • 145 x 10
  • 145 x 10
  • 145 x 10
• Face Pulls
  • 75 x 15
  • 75 x 15
  • 75 x 15
  • 75 x 12
• Lateral Raises
  • 15e x 12
  • 15e x 12
  • 15e x 12
  • 15e x 12
• Lying Triceps Extensions (superset with curls)
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
• Close-grip EZ-bar Curls
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 9