The pain was worse.

Truly, the arm pain from yesterday was worse today. Stands to reason, given this work directly utilized the arms.

I started bench pressing, things were OK. As the warm-ups went on, I started to feel it in the brachialis, especially when the bar was on my chest – a point where the arm muscles are really working to stabilize. After each work set the ache was tremendous and got worse each set.

Last night? I looked at my last 1+ week and did 240 for 6 reps – I wanted 7 today. As the pain grew, I told myself to just do what I could. What could I do?

One.

I put 240 on the bar, did one rep, the pain was too much, the bar was shaking, and all I could think was more reps will not end well, so I racked it.

Not only did I rack it, I stopped the whole session. I mean, it’s chest and back and arms – what good would be served by doing more work?

I’m disappointed because I didn’t hit my numbers, but it’s what it is. I am going to work hard the next few days to help bring this down in hopes of still PR’ing with my Press on Friday. But even there, if it’s still some pain and I can only muster 1 rep, then so be it. For sure, next cycle will set a new PR. 🙂

And yes, next week is deload.

It’s what it is.

Interesting thing. I was talking about the problem with my wife this morning, giving her an “air” demonstration of my squat grip: normal vs. eagle claw. It was interesting that just canting my wrist (normal grip) stimulated the pain in my arms, but when I went to a straight/neutral wrist (as I would with eagle claw), the pain went away.

I was surprised it happened that way during my little demo, but it’s certainly telling.

Anyways, today was what it was. Just going to work to fix the issues and keep moving forward.

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

• Bench Press
  • bar x whatever
  • 100 x 5 (warmup sets superset with band pull-aparts)
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 3
  • 190 x 5 (work sets superset with neutral-grip pulldowns)
  • 215 x 3
  • 240 x 1