Woke up. Saw my shadow — 6 more weeks of dieting and lifting. 😉

Session went well. I’m happy with the slow, incremental increases in approach. It’s the same basic philosophy of “start light”. Follow the template to the “T” first cycle. This cycle only change is for the last set to be not just a drop-set but rest-pause. Next cycle I’ll make more small additions and adjustments. That way I have somewhere to go, and what I do now adds stress, gives the body something new to have to adapt to, and by the time it does, then another small adjustment. It is hard to do this because I really want to just plow forward and do all-the-things. But I’m glad I’m giving this “restraint” in programming a go, because so far it seems good. Still early, but so far so good.

Of course, the rest-pause benching took a bunch away from the DB benching, but that’s fine.

One thing I did find I reminded myself of is that in my tempo I’m so focused on slowing the eccentric that I’m forgetting to explode on the concentric! So I found mysel refocusing to ensure the concentric was fast and explosive, but still ensuring the muscles did the work (not a whole body momentum thing or anything like that). Still working on getting used to this approach in lifting, but I am enjoying it.

Based upon 5/3/1 for Powerlifting, off-season for mass

• Bench Press (superset with medium-rep lat pulldowns)
  • bar x whatever
  • 100 x 5
  • 125 x 5
  • 150 x 3
  • 175 x 3
  • 200 x 3
  • 225 x 3
  • 175 x 17, 4, 2 (rest pause)
• Wide, pronated grip lat pulldowns
  • 90 x 12
  • 100 x 12
  • 110 x 12
  • 120 x 12
  • 120 x 12
  • 120 x 12
  • 120 x 12
• DB Bench Press
  • 65e x 10
  • 65e x 10
  • 65e x 10
  • 65e x 8
  • 65e x 8
• Chest-Supported DB Row
  • 50e x 12
  • 50e x 12
  • 50e x 12
  • 50e x 12
  • 50e x 10
• Pushdowns (EZ-bar)
  • 40 x 100
• Face Pulls
  • 50 x 100