Today was alright. Solid day, no complaints.

Pressing went fine. Didn’t set a rep PR, but it was still a fair showing for the day.

Dips were weird. My body just didn’t want to do them. It didn’t feel muscular (like muscles were exhausted), but rather like things just didn’t want to fire. Hard to describe.

Working shrugs to be fast/explosive on the concentric is kinda weird feeling, because it’s such a small range of motion — and it’s shrugging. I don’t quite have the weight dialed in either, but it’s close. I did feel like this is getting me something tho, so I’ll stick with it.

Anyways, things just chug along.

Current feelings? Work next week as usual. Keep carbs in check. Week after take as a deload (debating if I’ll jack-shit deload or proper deload), and I may go lo-carb that whole week to try to shed some bloat. I’ll probably get more out of it if I don’t jack-shit but do a proper deload and throw in some cardio. I have to work to keep my weight in check.

• Press (superset with pulldowns)
  • bar x whatever
  • 70 x 5
  • 90 x 5
  • 110 x 3
  • 125 x 3
  • 145 x 3
  • 160 x 6
  • 145 x 8
  • 125 x 11
• Lat Pulldowns (pronated grip, to chest)
  • 105 x 12
  • 115 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
• Dips (superset with shrugs)
  • BW x 8
  • BW x 9
  • BW x 5
• DB Shrugs
  • 70e x 15
  • 70e x 15
  • 70e x 15
• Front Plate Raises (all the way above head)
  • 25 x 28
  • 25 x 18
  • 25 x 15
• Skullcrushers
  • 65 x 12
  • 65 x 12
  • 65 x 12
• Hammer Curl
  • 40e x 10
  • 40e x 10
  • 40e x 8

Today had to be a “jack shit” day as I had to get somewhere early today.

Things felt a little heavy, but I still moved around alright. The top set was a rep-PR, so cool there.

In related news, I have some thoughts about rest. That either I’ll go to 3x/week and stick with 6-week cycle (well, 2-cycles back to back before deload), or stick with 4x/week but deload after each cycle. Not sure yet….

• Deadlift
  • 170 x 5
  • 210 x 5
  • 250 x 3
  • 295 x 3
  • 335 x 3
  • 380 x 7 (7 rep PR)
  • 335 x 7
  • 295 x 9

On paper, an 80% day. To me tho, a -10% day.

On paper the day is a good one. Things went up, progress was made. But I just didn’t feel great about it.

Bench work was unstable. I just couldn’t get my lower body to fire, to be tight, to have drive. Things just felt all over the place and it manifested in wasted energy and lost reps. I’m not 100% sure why things sucked, but they did. Did not make a rep PR.

The one thought is the rows. I’m doing them with an EZ-bar and a pronated/overhand grip, just for variety. That pull involves more biceps than a neutral grip. I felt my biceps getting a little irritated, not unlike the prior issues I had before, tho certainly not quite the same. Given what I was feeling, that may have been at the root of the instabilities. Hard to say. On the last 2 sets of rows I switched to free handles and a neutral grip and felt more back and less biceps recruitment. I’ll probably stick with the neutral grip.

But otherwise, things are what they are.

• Bench Press (superset cable rows)
  • bar x whatever
  • 105 x 5
  • 130 x 5
  • 155 x 3
  • 180 x 3
  • 210 x 3
  • 235 x 7
  • 210 x 11
  • 180 x 11
• Cable Rows
  • 100 x 12
  • 110 x 12
  • 120 x 12
  • 130 x 12
  • 130 x 12
  • 130 x 12
  • 130 x 12
  • 130 x 12
• DB Bench Press (superset with Kroc rows)
  • 75e x 10
  • 75e x 10
  • 75e x 10
• Kroc Row
  • 50 x 10e
  • 50 x 10e
  • 50 x 27e
• DB Upright Row
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 12
• Overhead Rope Extensions
  • 60 x 13
  • 60 x 12
  • 60 x 8
• EZ Bar Curl (narrow grip)
  • 55 x 15
  • 55 x 14
  • 55 x 11

That was good.

I must be liking squats. 🙂 Last night before bed I looked up what I was to do today. “OK, 305 for reps. How many do I need to set a rep PR? 6 will work.” And went to bed.

Worked up, and 6 came pretty easy. I knew I could go for more and thought about it, but no, I set the goal of 6, met the goal, and left a couple in the tank, which is the smarter way to go. Very happy.

While you cannot use 1RM formulas to know what your 1RM actually would be, it is a fair way to compare progress over time. Right now my 1RM is calculating out to 365, and that calculation’s been pretty steady. Again, it doesn’t necessarily mean I could squat 365 right now, but it’s cool to see I’m now flirting in that realm — 3.5 wheels. I do 325 next week, which I expect I should do for 3-4 reps just fine. That’s my old 1RM. Then 2 more cycles and I’ll be doing 345, which is my current 1RM, for reps. Progress is good.

I am very happy with my choice for pause squats. Today I wasn’t sure how many reps I’d do, since the script is 3 sets of 3-5 reps. Being 3-week, do I still go for 5? 4? I figured to just wing it: if I can get 5, take it. And so I did. What was nice about this set was not just the same focus on technique, but in the hole I paused for longer. I found myself not just letting momentum dissipate, but then settling into the bottom position, and found a little stretch happening. Then having to come out of the hole was tougher, but better in terms of muscles recruited. I really dug it. Good good stuff.

One thing I found myself being reminded of throughout squatting today was the importance of WHOLE body tightness on the descent. I get the upper body tight, but the lower body doesn’t have that strict tightness. I found myself happier when I did, especially my knees.

As for everything else, it’s just a slow work-up for being good to my legs and making my knees happy. I’ll probably continue one more week of “ramp up” on the lunges and extensions, then afterwards up the volume with just 1 more set, etc. Again, slow ramp up, to help with my knees.

Good day.

• Squats
  • bar x whatever
  • 135 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 205 x 3
  • 240 x 3
  • 270 x 3
  • 305 x 3 (6 rep PR)
• Pause Squat
  • 240 x 5
  • 240 x 5
  • 240 x 5
• Lunges
  • BW x 12e
  • BW x 12e
• Leg Extensions
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 15
• Twisting Crunches
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 16
  • BW x 14

Pretty good, pretty good.

Pressing went well. Set an 8-rep PR with the top set, which I was happy about. I must say, getting back to doing rep-PRs has put my mind at ease a bit, because the past 3 5/3/1-cycles felt heavy. They were fresh after a reset, so they shouldn’t have felt heavy, but it started to make me wonder if I was going to have to reset soon (typically it’s 5-8 cycles before a reset). But hitting things like I have this week has made me feel like things are on track.

The pyramid-down sets are killer. It’s basically 3 sets of AMRAP, and they are taking a lot out of me. It’s good stuff tho (well, apart from having to refigure how I’ll handle deadlift day). Interesting thing was on the last set what I felt give out first was my deltoids, which usually aren’t the first thing to give. Interesting.

From Tuesday’s bench day I had opted to readjust how much pulling I do superset with pressing, and to move my additional back exercise instead to be superset with the “other” pressing exercise. So I opted to do the same here, and I dug that. Flows better.

Dips were funny. I haven’t done them in forever and was pretty trashed after the pressing, so I wasn’t sure how many I could do (plus I weigh more). On the first dip, I got to the bottom and collapsed. 🙂 My body was like “what the hell are you doing?” But then I remembered better cues about keeping tight and so on, so I continued along. In fact you can see that the later 2 sets had a couple more reps because body mechanics came back. LOL

The shrugs are a trial. As I’ve said before, I’m trying to work all my assistance to have that fast, explosive concentric and a slower eccentric (I realized this morning the tempo is akin to Jairo, from “Bob’s Burgers”, going “TIGHT! and relax…”). Shrugs generally have been a consistent tempo for me, so I wanted to start a little light to find what would work here, since this tempo does change how things go. I still am too light, but I think I know where to go from here.

Front plate raises were simply 25#, all the way over the head, AMRAP. Good stuff.

And then a little arm work. Which again, that tempo. I found it hard to remember to do the tempo with the skullcrushers because they start with eccentric. But gee if this sort of “TIGHT! and relax…” tempo isn’t working nicely.

Anyways, I thought this was a good session. The new routine is generally ok. A few adjustments, and we’ll see how they go next week.

• Press (superset with pulldowns)
  • bar x whatever
  • 70 x 5
  • 90 x 5
  • 110 x 3
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 155 x 8 (8 rep PR)
  • 135 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 115 x 10 (AMRAP)
• Lat Pulldowns (pronated grip, to chest)
  • 105 x 12
  • 115 x 12
  • 125 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 12
  • 135 x 10
  • 135 x 10
• Dips (superset with shrugs)
  • BW x 6
  • BW x 8
  • BW x 8
• DB Shrugs
  • 50e x 15
  • 60e x 15
  • 70e x 15
• Front Plate Raises (all the way above head)
  • 25 x 25
  • 25 x 15
  • 25 x 11
• Skullcrushers
  • 65 x 12
  • 65 x 12
  • 65 x 10
• Hammer Curl
  • 35e x 10
  • 35e x 10
  • 35e x 10

Ooof.

So first deadlift session of the new program and oh man…

Deadlifts themselves went well. It really reinforces how much I like going for rep PRs. Today’s top set did set a 10 rep PR for me. I wanted to stick with double-overhand grip as long as I could, and I did, then switched to mixed grip to finish things out.

The pyramid down sets. Oof. They were good, but it was rather evident that pushing towards “failure” was starting to blow up my lower back. Good way, but still. I certainly stopped not because of my legs, but because the lower back said that was enough. So I guess there’s a weak point. 😉

I wanted to continue working back down, thinking that going for failure with the warm-up weights would just be high-rep silly. So instead, switch to RDL to continue the work down. Nope. Again, the lower back had enough. In fact, I couldn’t finish. I went down for the 2nd set of RDLs and my body said “don’t be stupid”.

I tried doing hypers. Nope.

Now, if I sat and rested a good 15-20 minutes, things would have been fine to continue, but I don’t have that sort of time. I just did my leg curls and packed it up (forgot to do my ab work).

So I’m not sure what to do.

Part of me thinks I should just do the top set AMRAP and then leave it alone. Switch to something else that does more hamstring work, like maybe just RDL for higher reps (6-10). Or I may just stick with this, maybe instead of RDL in fact work the rest of the way down with conventional deadlifts. Don’t know right now. Going to have to think about this.

• Deadlift
  • 170 x 5
  • 210 x 5
  • 250 x 3
  • 275 x 5
  • 315 x 5
  • 355 x 10 (10 rep PR)
  • 315 x 7
  • 275 x 7
• RDL
  • 250 x 4
• Hyperextensions
  • BW x nope
• Leg Curls
  • 35 x 12
  • 35 x 12
  • 35 x 12
• Crunches
  • forgot….