Another day, another lifetime PR set!

Today was Press day, and I pressed 195#. Like my other lifetime PRs, they were all last set back in December 2016, so I’m happy to have recovered from my losses and be back on track. What’s especially happy to me here is I haven’t pressed in ages, so to come in and do this was happy.

Also, I almost failed. I knew 195 would be pushing it, but I had the confidence I could do it — but it’d be a true 1RM if I did. I unracked the bar and things didn’t feel right — didn’t have the air, didn’t have the right setup. I pressed and only got about halfway. Racked it. Took a second, got better air, better tightness, better setup, and went again. Yes there was grind, there was sticking point, but I THINK I let out a yell or a big grunt or something (music in my earbuds was loud so I don’t really know) and up it went. It was quite satisfying.

Anyways, that made for a great cap to the week. I set lifetime PRs in squat, deadlift, and press. I didn’t in bench press because I explicitly stopped short, and now I wish I had pressed forward and tried it. Oh well, no biggie. This was a LOT of fun to do, and I haven’t had this much fun in ages. It was great to just go in, push myself, and that I set some PRs was quite satisfying because it showed me my work to date has been what I needed. Plus it’s just fun to get back to lifting heavy again — it’s what I crave.

So next week I’ll start my new programming in earnest. We’ll see how it goes. What actually makes me excited? Looking at my numbers from this past week and I realize that hitting my goal of 3/4/5 (or maybe now: 2/3/4/5 if I throw Press in there too) is achievable in a year (or less) if I work smart, stay healthy, and have good progress. Motivation to keep it smart.

Oh – the lunges. It sucked. I know starting off the work here on the bodyweight single-leg work is going to be painful as my knees rehab. But I can already say it seems to be paying off — I don’t feel as stiff, as achey. It’s still too early to really know for sure but I’ll just do what I can as I can. So like today, 5 reps was all I could muster due to the discomfort, but that’s ok: break it up into smaller chunks and do more chunks and it worked out quite well.

Finding Maxes

• Press
  • bar x 5
  • 75 x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 3
  • 135 x 1
  • 155 x 1
  • 175 x 1
  • 195 x 1 (PR)
  • 105 x 5
  • 105 x 5
  • 105 x 5
  • 105 x 5
  • 105 x 5
• Normal Grip Pulldown
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 12
• Lunges
  • bw x 5e
  • bw x 5e
  • bw x 5e
  • bw x 5e
  • bw x 5e
  • bw x 5e