Overhead press felt loads better than last week, glad to see it was just jet lag tearing my down and not me actually regressing
Lat pulldowns are all over the place, due to different machines/bar attachments at this gym. Last week it was crazy wide because the only one open was some weird MAG attachment thing, had a more normal bar this time. Not stressing over the weight, just gonna test it out each time and make sure Iām feeling some good back work when I do it. Only a couple weeks here anyway.
Lower back is still crazy sore. Deadlifts Saturday did not feel good, and it shows. Felt like I was using all back, and my body is mad at me for it. Think I may switch to trap bar for the next couple weeks, will allow a more upright position even with the heeled shoes, plus just to get a little variety
Run sucked something awful, not because of the intensity, but because my lower back was cramping the entire time. Oh well, still went okay.
In and out of the gym in 50 minutes. Supersets make everything go faster. I like it
Last week ended a little rough. Got some stomach bug that had me down for the count. When to the gym and barely avoided catastrophe on squats, thankfully the bathroom was not farā¦ went in for bench as well, ended up just hitting a couple sets at 185 then leaving. Took a few days of bland food and lots of sleep, feeling better, bowels are behaving.
170 feels a lot heavier than 165, felt like every rep was a grinder. I feel like overhead press, more than any other lift, had a hard ceiling. 155? Oh yeah, I can rep it out. 160? Harley moves haha. Still hit 3x5
Chest/armpit/front of shoulder still doesnāt like me benching. It better get over it.
I love cable curls. Honestly, I hate doing accessory work which I why I blow through all of it in like 10 minutes; but cable curls are becoming a favorite. Just get such a crazy contraction on each rep
Man Iāve noticed the exact same thing on OHP. The smallest plates I have are 5lbs so I always have to make a 10lb jump. Itās ridiculous. I can hit a certain weight just fine for reps and jump 10lbs and canāt get it off my chest. Seems like thatās the only lift that happens with.
My running theory is that because overhead Press is generally not as strong as bench or squats, a small bump in weight is still a larger percentage jump. Add 5 lbs on bench when you bench 200, only a 2.5% increase, will 5lbs on a 100lb overhead press is a 5% increase. Makes sense in my head anyway
Conditioning:
Air assault bike intervals
8 rounds
10 seconds work, 20 seconds rest
Notes:
Squats went well. Jumped up to 315 despite using 305 last time because honestly, I just wanted to use 3 plates. Went fairly well. Squats were difficult, and I was definitely doing a bit of a squat-morning on the second set (somehow the 3rd set was way easier than the second, think I set up better.) still, happy to be doing multiple sets at 300+, feeling strong(ish)
Lower back was fried, so didnāt try to push it on the RDLs, got in some good work and called it short of failure.
Did some shrugs today. Yesterday I noticed my hotel has mirrors that actually allow me to look directly at my back. Honestly, may be the first time I have ever looked at my back dead on haha. Noticed that my lats were better than I thought, but my traps need some serious love. Funny, because I thought it would be the other way. Iām not really a physique guy, I know Iām ugly haha, but I do want big traps and forearms, so shrugs are going to be a more common occurrence.
Just hopped on the air-assault bike and clicked on of the pre-set interval programs. Sucked a lot more than I was expecting and 4 minute cardio session to suckā¦ I like it
Bench went well. Time to do a little research on what the hell is hurting so much when I bench; whatever it is just isnāt going away. Still, happy to hit 235 for reps.
Overhead press was done cleaning the bar instead of in the rack; because the gym was busy and I wanted to let other people use it.
Keeping weight here for a while on the rows, think this is the point where I may start cheating the body English if I go up. Start slowly adding reps, then Iāll bump weight.
Did this in oly lifting shoes because I forgot my sneakers. I think I actually like overhead In regular running shoes more than lifting shoes. Weird
The ā;ā key is next to the ā,ā key, and I keep on accidentally hitting it when I type on the phone, and at this point, Iām just going to roll with it.
My left pec, sort of where the shoulder and chest meet in the armpit. Hurts with just the 45lb bar, doesnāt necessarily hurt anymore with weight, just same feeling. Throws me off a little, nothing serious but itās been this way forā¦ 6 weeks? With no change, so I should probably do something about it
Edit:
Worth noting I have a very, very long history of being stupid when pushing through injuries. Dislocated a shoulder wrestling, reset it myself in the locker room and ended up tearing the rotator cuff in the process, then still went out to wrestle (did surprisingly well for a gimpy arm, definitely lost but didnāt get pinned so still helped the team more than a forfeit). Ran a fitness test with a broke foot taped to hell, tore my patella tendon falling from the obstacle course and still tried to keep powerlifting back in college. I really, really hate admitting Iām hurt, which is something Iāve just learned about myself, so now I make a conscious effort to identify and treat any area that starts to give me trouble.
Maybe you have your answer. If there is an existing or old injury there already this maybe effecting your bench. If its hurting at the insertion point it could be the tendon, but I also sometimes find good old fashioned DOMS tends to be felt at the same point especially as you stretch the muscle on the eccentric portion of the bench press.
I thought it was just DOMS at first, but the thing is it still hurts when I havenāt trained it at all. More realistically, i think my history of shoulder injuries has resulted in some god awful mobility that caused me to stretch something too far when doing dips. My running theory anyway, but itās time to look into how to make it feel better
So I have two things I want to work on right now. I want to focus on bringing up my squat, and I want to build my traps a bit. Been thinking how best to do that. I have settled on this; when I get back to my old gym, I will keep my squat day the same, using the SSB and finishing with RDLs. On my deadlift day, I will do trap bar deadās and back squats. The reason is a) trap bar deadās both tax my lower back less leaving me fresher for the squat, and work my traps more (I think) and b) if I want to build my squat, I need to spend some time actually doing regular squats
Iām going to keep the weight a little lighter for back squats. I have always had issues with squat form, tend to good morning the weight a lot when I get fatigued. So with back squats, only perfect reps. 4x6 at submax weights, focus on building slowly with good form. 531 taught me I respond well to submax work, so I think this is a good call. Will keep up max work on the SSB, I think it does amazing things for my back squat, so definitely want to keep that momentum going.
Not too concerned about my regular deadlift. My deadlift has always gone up with my squat, the opposite has not been true. A couple months focus on the squat, hitting RDLs and the trap bar hard, should not hurt me too bad. Heck, maybe some variation will even help, one way to find out.
Okay, on to todayās workout. I LOVE THE TRAP BAR. Is it because I could move a lot of weight? Yes. Yes it is. And I have no shame admitting it haha. Also, it does feel good, better than regular deadlifts ever did, which is surprising because I like deadlifts. Feel like I can set up a bit better, use my legs a lot more. Upper black was totally fried. This is going to be fun.
Squats went well. Reps were crisp. 4x6 seems to be just the right rep scheme here.
Conditioning sucked, and I was really worried because it felt a lot tougher than last time I did intervals. Then I checked my log and saw I was resting 90 seconds in between 400s last time, and felt a bit better about sucking wind during these intervals.
Press was not feeling good today, fought hard but failed to get a 6th final rep
All other lifts felt smooth, chest hurt on bench but moved alright
Cut the run short. Started to feel some pain in my shins, and I am not about to give myself shin splints again, last time ended in a stress fracture that had me in a boot for weeks. Going to keep running, but the run is over the moment I start to feel it in the shins
Squats moved well. Itās been years since I was squatting this much, and I donāt actually remember the weights from around then. Definitely higher, but idk how much. So Iām just going to call this a PR for getting back to it.
Running is going well. I hate it, but itās going well haha.
Chest was hurting like hell from the get go on bench. Played around with an empty bar, found that flaring my elbows at all resulted in drastically increasing the sharpness of the pain. Not a big deal on the decent, but I do flare at the sticking point coming up. Well, on my 3rd set of bench, as I was finishing the 3rd rep, felt a sharper than usual pain in my left pec, barely finished the rep. Racked the bar, stretched for a second. Decided to do some volume at a lower weight to force some blood in the muscle. When I got home; took of my shirt, and found a 3-4 inch black spot on my chest/armpit where blood was pooling. So thereās that.
Wanted to just hit my second superset and get the hell out of the gym. Did some work, called it a day
In a weird way, Iām happy about it. Not like glad Iām hurt, but I can look at my chest and go āah, thatās why youāve been hurting like hell, I tore something.ā Think I prolly tore it a little bit months ago when it first started hurting, just kind of pushing the envelope with it more and more since then. At least it partially excuses the poverty bench