Deload continues.

Today was an interesting experiment.

First, bench technique. I was watching someone’s bench video and they had comments about tightness, including squeezing the glutes. One thing I’ve struggled with is keeping the lower body tight while I bench, and glute squeeze makes a lot of sense both in terms of actually being tight AND helping to encourage overall lower body tightness. So I tried it, but alas, I will need to really modify my technique. Either putting my feet way behind me (closer to my head) or way out away from me (legs almost straight). It’s a matter of longer legs, not quite a competition bench height. Because when I squeeze like that, you can’t help but have the lower half rise up to a certain level, then you need to adust everything else to meet it. I’m very curious and still should play with this some, but for now I’ll just file it away.

I didn’t feel much arm/elbow pain until later — DB benching. It felt like in the bottom position the DBs were close to my body and caused a more acute elbow angle, thus. Kinda interesting observation. I may reduce the DB weights and keep them further away from my body to see what happens. Or I may move away from DB’s for a bit and maybe do inclines. I don’t know. If anything, I expected today might give me some idea of where to go, but it just gave me more questions.

That said, my current feeling is to take a Paul Carter-like approach. Keep the 6 sets working up, but 5/4/3/2/1/1+ rep scheme. The + on the last set is that in general I will not go for 5/3/1 prescribed reps, just focus on the single — and this is every week, regardless of weight. So the progression remains 5/3/1 but the rep scheme is Carter’s. If however I am feeling good, go ahead and go for reps on that last set. Then instead of the pyramid down sets I may not do anything additional, or I may try for a simple first-set-last or something of the like. Something where I get some volume and some work, but again it’s all going to depend on how things feel.

Otherwise, it’s just a deload.

• Bench Press (superset cable rows)
  • bar x whatever
  • 105 x 5
  • 105 x 5
  • 130 x 5
  • 130 x 5
  • 155 x 5
  • 155 x 5
• Cable Rows
  • 105 x 12
  • 105 x 12
  • 115 x 12
  • 115 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 12
• DB Bench Press (superset with Kroc rows)
  • 75e x 10
  • 75e x 10
• Kroc Row
  • 50 x 10
  • 50 x 10
• DB Upright Row
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
• Overhead Rope Extensions
  • 60 x 15
  • 60 x 10
• EZ Bar Curl (narrow grip)
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 15