NEW LIFETIME BEST! And I didn’t just set a new PR, I blew it away!

And my elbow/biceps pain was pretty minimal. So quite an interesting day.

First the PR.

I knew from last week’s Press session that the PR would fall today. I also knew I’d blow it away. Best I’ve ever Pressed was 165#. In RepCount (the iPhone app I use) it lists 165×1 as my best, but in my spreadsheet (my official records) I have 165×2 listed somewhere. So either way it’s 165, and 1 or 2 reps, I knew so long as I hit 3 I’d be good, but I knew I was good for more – provided nothing stupid, like tendonitis, got in my way.

So to hit 165 for 5 reps today was pretty awesome. Which means next 1+ week should be good for an even better PR, because I should be pressing 170

Interesting thing is that in terms of Paul Carter’s 80%/+10%/-10% grading of days, today really should just be a 80% day. Today should be nothing special, as it’s really just solid progress in the progression of the program. Today was what it was supposed to be. The only reason today is cool is because it happened to also include a lifetime PR. But the thing is, I can’t really rate it at an 80% day – it’s really a -10% day because of injury.

So able that elbow/biceps pain.

It really wasn’t bad. I attribute this to a bunch of things.

First, I stopped taking NSAIDs. There’s growing evidence these can help with the immediate aftermath of pain, but in terms of being a “therapy” to help with tendonitis, the evidence is starting to show it does nothing; in fact, it could be detrimental towards the body actually healing itself. I stopped a couple days ago and honestly I can’t tell any difference in terms of managing the pain. So, unless I find I need them for some reason, not going to do them.

Second, in reading I learned about curcumin. I’m trying it. It may or may not help, but I figure 1 bottle and a couple weeks of taking it, sure can’t hurt anything but my wallet. I’m not expecting much here.

Third, I pulled out my lacrosse ball and during any downtimes at work yesterday I would roll the ball around my arm. Interesting was finding a lot of pain in my brachioradialis, more than anywhere else. I wasn’t really digging in, just enough pressure to feel something. I hope this helped, and I will continue to do this massage work every day.

Fourth, the things I did to modify my session today.

I’ve been reading about using elbow sleeves to help with such issues. I don’t have elbow sleeves (yet), so I put on my knee sleeves. They were a little loose, but I wore them the whole session. When I took them off there was sweat and some redness from improved blood flow, so I reckon they may have helped a bit in terms of warmth. The more interesting thing was how they made a small reduction in my range of motion — I wonder if that helped, because it kept the angle of flexion of my elbow a little open and may have avoided some compression from flexion. I did order some elbow sleeves from Mark Bell, so we’ll see how proper sleeves go.

I wrapped my wrists pretty tight. I do believe the full extension of my wrists is part of the problem, so wrapping to help minimize extension and also provide some support I reckon would help. I wrapped for every set, even warmups.

I continue to find my new setup approach really good at keeping the dizzy/light-headed feeling at bay. Very happy about this.

I did not superset lat pulldowns during pressing, just band pull-aparts. I figured using my biceps would of course flare things up, and I didn’t want to get in the way of PR’ing. Sure enough, this played into things because I did do a few sets of pulldowns after pressing and sure enough I started to feel the ache increase.

So then with that I made the call to minimize my assistance work. I didn’t close-grip bench at all. I only did a few high-rep sets of lat pulldowns, then some face pulls, some lat raises, and then switch up the arm work to simple pressdowns and DB curls for light weight and higher reps just to get a little bit of pump and increase blood flow to the arms. On the curls, interesting thing. I didn’t do hammers but instead did “normal” DB curls, starting with neutral grip and supinating as I curled up (and unwinding as I went back down). My arms really liked that — and maybe make sense given the brachioradialis issues. I actually felt BETTER from it. So I may put hammers on the side and do straight DB curls with supination. I might even throw in incline DB curls on the other day, for that stretch.

Point being – I’m going to be taking all this collected data and seeing how I can change up my sessions to help me work with this pain issue: letting it heal, not doing it again. From exercise selection to technique changes, etc.

So, good day. Good day.

Oh, and the new Crowbar album is awesome.

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
  • 105 x 3
  • 130 x 5 (work sets superset with band pull-aparts)
  • 150 x 3
  • 165 x 5 (new lifetime PR)
• Some light pulldowns
• Face Pulls
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 15
  • 90 x 15
• Lateral Raises
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 10
• Pushdowns
  • 50 x 20
  • 50 x 20
  • 50 x 20
• DB Curls
  • 20e x 15
  • 20e x 15
  • 20e x 15