Today is the best I (well, my arms) have felt from a pressing session in a long time.

The goal is to find a way to keep making progress yet deal with my arm pain – healing up, making it go away, etc.. Flat bench? Pain. (overhead) Press? No pain. So, maybe incline pressing might be what I can program. Last week I worked up to a good-enough 1RM and today I started with programming. The programming uses the 5/3/1 progression, but keeping with a Paul Carter-inspired 5/4/3/2/1/1+ rep scheme as a way to reduce some volume as that seems to be one factor in making the pain flare up. I knew I still wanted the top set to be a rep-PR set, but I wasn’t sure what I’d do afterwards; the plan was to call it depending how the arms felt.

The arms felt great!

I felt a hint of irritation, but really no more than I might feel normally in a day. I take this as a good sign. Yes, this is a data point of 1 so I can’t make any strong decisions yet, but that it wasn’t an immediate bust I’m happy about. In fact, ended up being a 12-rep PR in incline press. Because it felt good, I found myself during the work-up wanting to just use 5/3/1 reps but had to tell myself not to: because if you’re starting to feel good, that’s good but you’re still not out of the woods. Modify one thing at a time right now. So that said, I did opt to pyramid down. That worked out well. I’m pleased.

Then flies. Why flies? Yeah, it gives a bit of sternal pectoral work, but it’s more than that. Flat bench DB flies really serve to open up my chest and give a great stretch. I need that sort of thing as part of a rehab-type strategy for dealing with all of this. Will it directly serve my needs? I think in some part yes. The first set sucked pretty bad because the stretch was painful, along with some other expansion of the chest feelings. By the end I felt really good. It’s not about the weight, it’s not about the reps, it’s about getting myself better. I’ll stick with flies for a bit to see how it affects me.

And so, I’m also intentionally not supersetting back work with pressing work (per protocol) because more experimentation to avoid irritating things that could detract from focus on the main movement. But then I can jack up the work a bit, here only taking about 1 minute rest between sets on the rows.

The only other main change? Seated French Press. I haven’t done these in a LONG time, but man it felt really good. I was able to push further than I would in say a skullcrusher. I enjoyed how this went. Need to keep it lighter, higher reps. But worked well.

Oh, and adding in the additional warm-up work (jumping jacks, mountain climbers, jumps). I think my body is enjoying it. I don’t feel as stiff during the day. Things just don’t complain as much.

All in all, I’m pleased with how things went. I have to continue working on my rehab work outside of the gym, but so far, so good. We’ll see what the rest of this cycle brings.

• Incline Bench Press
  • bar x whatever
  • 80 x 5
  • 100 x 4
  • 120 x 3
  • 130 x 2
  • 150 x 1
  • 170 x 12 (12 rep PR)
  • 150 x 10
  • 135 x 10
• Flies
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12
  • 20e x 12
• Cable Rows
  • 105 x 12
  • 115 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 12
• DB Upright Row
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
  • 40e x 12
• Seated French Press
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 15
• Reverse EZ Bar Curl
  • 60 x 15
  • 60 x 15
  • 60 x 11
  • 60 x 9