Neither freezing rain nor sleet nor snow can keep me from going to the gym.

But the gym not being open is another story. 🙂

Weather in Austin is bad for Texans right now, and I didn’t know if the gym would be open but figured it would. Got there, and not open. Checked Facebook – nothing. Checked Instagram – ah, there’s the announcement, buried. Ugh. But they opened a little later so I went back home, did some work, then headed back in to a mostly empty gym.

Have to be honest tho. Part of me wanted the weather to be an excuse, because I wasn’t looking forward to today. Yes, now in week 3 of this mesocycle, I’m starting to get it. The volume is ramping up so much, the work, the weights. And what really gets me is that you CAN push a lot further than you think before failure — and you have to. And it just makes it worse. But it’s also interesting how a lot of these sets have a high first set, maybe 60-70% reduction for the second set, another big drop for the 3rd set, but then after that the reps are about the same or even a minor increase. Kinda funny.

But this is getting killer.

All that pushing work from yesterday? Wow. My triceps are really feeling it today. So then more triceps work today? Gah.

Front squats? I am appreciating them more and more. I agree tho they cannot be a high-rep exercise because you start to lose it in the upper back first. What I’m taking from this is right now I’ll probably respond better to front squats as a primary or secondary exercise with reps 3-10 reps. But I could make it a really good quad muscle exercise by doing something first, like a lot of leg presses or maybe even leg extensions, then front squatting. It’s going to be interesting to play with them more.

But the biggest take-home from today is – lawd, this is starting to hurt. 🙂 1 minute interset rest, and pushing 2/fail is really the thing that does you in. In fact, I find that I’m maybe doing a little more than 2/fail — that I’m thinking that I have certainly 1 MAYBE 2 in the tank — really trying to push as far and hard as I can towards failure.

Next week is going to be really interesting.

RP Physique, Mesocycle 2, week 3

• Front Squat
  • bar x 10
  • 95 x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 165 x 12
  • 165 x 10
  • 165 x 9
  • 165 x 8
  • 165 x 8
  • 165 x 6
• Leg Press
  • 230 x 17
  • 230 x 13
  • 230 x 12
  • 230 x 12
  • 230 x 12
  • 230 x 12
• Seated Leg Curl
  • 80 x 21
  • 80 x 16
  • 80 x 14
  • 80 x 12
  • 80 x 12
  • 80 x 11
• Calves on Leg Press
  • 80 x 25
  • 80 x 17
  • 80 x 16
  • 80 x 12
  • 80 x 13
  • 80 x 13
• Cable Rope Pushdown (superset)
  • 50 x 10
  • 75 x 5
  • 95 x 21
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 12
  • 95 x 12
  • 95 x 10
• Standing DB Shoulder Press
  • 30e x 15
  • 30e x 12
  • 30e x 11
  • 30e x 8
  • 30e x 8
• Standing BB Shoulder Press
  • 70 x 12
  • 70 x 9
  • 70 x 8
  • 70 x 8
  • 70 x 8