I don’t know where my head was at…. but it wasn’t in the gym.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 25, week 2

• Work Set – Bench Press (working max: 230#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 140 x 3
  • 165 x 3 (work)
  • 185 x 3
  • 210 x 5
• Assistance – Face Pulls (superset with bench press warm-up sets)
  • 30 x 15 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Close-grip Bench Press
  • 120 x 10 x 5
• Assistance – T-Bar rows (superset with the close-grips)
  • 90 x 10 x 5
• Seated Cable Rows
  • 90 x 10 x 3
• Rope-handle pressdowns with 20# for a bunch of reps, then EZ-bar curls with an empty bar for ?? reps
• Foam Rolling

I have no idea where my head was at today. It just wasn’t there. I felt asleep early on the couch, woke up just enough to migrate to the bed, then slept hard until the alarm woke me up. What? 9 hours of sleep? And even then I wanted more. Not sure what’s up, but there we go. And in the gym, I was awake and functioning, but just not “there”. I just went through the motions… all the benching felt weird, wobbly, but I just pressed on (pun intended). *shrug* These days happen.

I am trying a new organization of exercises, trying to help my shoulders and arms. I’m being stricter about my face pulls, which should help my shoulders warm-up.

And the t-bar rows… never done those before. But the gym has a “bicycle handle bar” that goes on the end of the bar. Put that on, throw 2 45# plates on, put the other end of the bar in a corner, and there you go — t-bar rows. First time I moved it, I was surprised at how little range of motion I got before the plates hit my chest. I was skeptical. But after adjusting my positioning a bit, then ensuring to really squeeze at the top and work strictly through this, I gotta say I’m sold. I haven’t felt my back worked like that in a long time, so that was cool. I’ll keep with these for a while. I don’t know tho if I want to up the weight a bit and stay in the 6-10 rep range, or keep the weight where it is and go for like 10-15 reps. I’m kinda leaning towards more reps (maybe 8-12).

Anyways, that’s that. My head was floating in the ether somewhere, but the effort seemed good.

On.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 25, week 1

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 310#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 5
  • 190 x 3
  • 220 x 3 (work)
  • 250 x 3
  • 285 x 4 (rep PR?)
• Assistance – Leg Press
  • 135 x 12
  • 225 x 12
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 135 x 15
• Assistance – Leg Curls (really emphasize the negative)
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 10
• Assistance – Crunches
  • 15 x bw
  • 15 x bw
  • 10 x bw
• Foam Rolling

Wow. Today I just felt “on”. I didn’t go in expect that, giving myself permission to “jack shit” it today. I had a VERY long day yesterday, got home much later than expected, didn’t get enough sleep, and just didn’t feel solid. But something kicked in alright. Maybe it’s the new “preworkout” (25g whey isolate in water, 400 mg caffeine). Maybe it’s the dedication to being “tight”…. but I don’t know about that, because I felt so sloppy today.

But I’m just hell bent on depth, especially on the heaviest set. Again, I’m overcoming mental barriers here: fear of going down and not getting back up. That if I go too deep, I won’t get out of the hole. Whatever. What’s the worst? I’ll dump it. So? Yeah it’ll suck both in ego and the physical pain of dumping it over my head (due to the fixed half-rack), but whatever. In fact, the weights won’t be so heavy at this point that I should have a problem — these should be challenging weights, but not at the edge of my capability, so certainly after the first rep I should know if it’ll happen or not, right?

I told myself: you’re doing 4 reps. Just that plain. No wiggle room, no doing 5, no doing 3, 6 was right out. 4. And I nailed 4 pretty good. I was focused on depth, on being tight. I also took my time. It might have been a few seconds of “resetting” myself at the top before I went again, but fine. And I got the 4 and was damn happy of it.

I do think that’s a rep PR, as I look back over my logs. Where 230# was a big roadblock for me at one time, this 270-280-290 was as well, because I got up into that weight and knew my form was horrible — I was not hitting depth, I was sloppy as hell. But now, I’m hitting these weights, I know I’m getting depth, and I’m nailing reps. 285 for 4 is pretty good. I actually am thinking that I could legit attempt 315 for a single before the end of the year. That would rock to hit 3 wheels — big big big milestone in my book. I’m motivated.

Oddly, I wonder if leg pressing might be a blessing in disguise for me. I know weak-ass quads is part of my problem, due to where I’m having failure. I also wonder how much my adductors are playing in here. And the deep leg presses are killing my quads and adductors (and being nice to my shoulders and elbows). I almost didn’t do them today — with the lack of rest and such, I felt I didn’t want to push myself beyond recovery, but I felt so good after the 285×4 I couldn’t resist.

We’ll see what benefits things bring.

Revisions, revisions.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 25, week 1

• Work Set – Press (working max: 165#)
  • 45 x 5 x 2 sets (warmup)
  • 65 x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 100 x 3
  • 110 x 5 (work)
  • 125 x 5
  • 140 x 6
• Assistance – Close grip pulldowns (superset with press warmup sets)
  • 70 x 12 x 5 sets
• Assistance – Press
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 6
  • 100 x 6
  • 100 x 6
• Assistance – Pronated grip lat pulldowns (superset with asst. pressing)
  • 100 x 10 x 5 sets
• Shrugs
  • 135 x 10 x 3 sets
• Rope-handle pressdowns
  • 40 x 12 x 3 sets
• Rotating DB curls (superset with pressdowns)
  • 20 x 12 x 3 sets
• Foam Rolling

Due to my elbow/arm issues, I’m trying to take a different approach. I want to change things up to put less stress on my elbows, but also give some more direct work to my forearms and biceps because I think their direct neglect is part of the equation too.

So a lot of the program changed, and you’ll see it reflected over the next week. My choices were directly influenced by that issue.

I tried going light on the back work, but it was too light. The close-grips will likely remain very light and high rep, since they’re mostly there to warm things up. But the main pulldowns should have been heavier. Also, the rotating db curls I’m doing in an effort to really work the biceps and forearms, but either the weight was too light or I’m rotating at a wrong clip. I tried to keep the rotation even, but found that when I started in a pronated position and remained there until about halfway, then just quickly supinated the hand, that felt more effective. So I’ll probably change up technique and increase weight a bit and see. I am hoping this will have some more direct affect on those muscles vs. hammer curls, else… I’ll just go back to hammers since they are a good stand-by.

But a secondary issue is I’m trying to really turn my assistance work into bodybuilding work. I want to see about packing on some more muscle mass. So I’m shortening the rest periods. You can see how during the assistance pressing my reps went way down, due to only taking about a minute rest in between. This is another change in my focus. We’ll see how things go.