I had to drive 5 hours round trip to bring my wife home this evening, so I took a few hours off of work to make sure I got my squats in first.
Some context on the presses before everyone claps me on the back for my meager PRs: I haven’t trained my press “heavy” for a couple of years now. My programs have focused on the SBD and I’ve trained the press as a supplemental lift in the 6-8 rep range. I do my press out of the rack, sitting on a flat bench (no back) because I’m too tall to do it standing in my weight room. I pride myself on being disciplined and sticking to the program. Even when I feel I could go for a big max, I stick to the plan. Well, after squats today, the press warmups felt pretty strong, and this is the last week of this block of training, so I figured why not send it. My press PRs have been on the board for a long time with no update. So I broke from the plan and broke all of my PRs on the press. I actually had plenty more left on each of them, but I didn’t want to risk having gone off plan and then missing a lift, so I did enough to break the PRs and move on. I misloaded the bar on the 125x5, so had to reload it and go for the 130x5. I know these are pretty weak PRs to be writing so much about, but if you’ve read my log much, you know that pressing of any sort is certainly not my strong suit. Anyway, doing all that work in the higher rep range seems to have translated over ok. Not great, but ok.
I really pissed myself off with that 395x1 squat. I made it much harder than it needed to be by being timid with it. I love to attack my squats, and I just wasn’t in the right headspace, I guess. It got plenty deep and I got it up ok, but I’m calling myself out for being diffident. Sorry; it will be remedied.
Thanks, brother. I am actually a little bit excited about them. Feeling how much more I had in the tank also makes me optimistic about them. I was in a hurry, though, or I might have taken the time to do some true maxes. But I’ll take it!
I wish I could do standing presses, but I’m too lazy to haul my stuff outside and clean it up to my shoulders to press.
Never talk down your PR’s mate or apologise for the number. Celebrate the hard work and give yourself a pat on the back. You can only compare yourself to you and if today you were stronger than yesterday then that is a good thing. The world is very good at putting us down at any opportunity so don’t ever help it out. Shout out your victory with pride and then push harder still to make this number your warm up in future.
Abs
Arms
Upper Back
20 minutes of HIIT on the Echo bike
I think I’d rather do any other type of training than intervals on that bike…
I’m just going to throw this in here so I remember it someday: My peak weight of this winter was 235 lb on Feb. 28. I stepped on the scales at 216 this morning, making my rolling 7-day average 219.7 and my waist circumference 35.5". My weight since the first of the year (purple line is day-to-day, green line is 7-day average:
For most of the last two years I’ve been doing 3-day/week strength programs, with another 2 days/week dedicated to accessory stuff and conditioning. After my off-program seated press foray this week, I’ve decided to switch up to a 4-day/week program and add in a press strength day. This will also allow me to increase volume a little bit across the board, but I’ll specifically get in more benching volume. We’ll see if we can’t get the bench press moving a little bit.
The programming will look very similar, just with an extra day in there. I’ll still be doing accessories 2 days/week, and try to get conditioning in at least 4-5 times/week.
This one wiped me out. I flew through the workout so I would have time at the end for the walk. I was really pushing to get the walk in under 45 minutes, which I did. My neck, however, is not doing very well.
It’s a chronic issue. I busted myself up pretty bad playing rough in my 20s. I’ve had every surgery and seen every specialist. I’ve been on pain killers for it since my mid-30s. Walking is the worst thing for it, and the vest makes it even worse. It’s one of those things I just have to figure out how to live with, cause it’ll never get better. All good, though. I make sure it didn’t stop me from doing stuff. It just hurts haha
Sounds nasty mate. I have a ruptured disc at c5 c6 from a motorcycle accident 20 years ago. There is some calcification on the vertebrae there which with the narrower gap causes me some issues time to time. No where near as bad as yours by the sound of it but still not ideal. It’s funny how we tend to just find ways to work round stuff. I guess at the end of the day there is really no choice.
Yeah I’ve got rods and plates and screws all through me. I just had to decide at some point I wasn’t going to let pain stop me from doing things. There are some things I just can’t physically perform. But, like you, if it’s only pain I just go through it.
Interestingly, I’m pretty sure since I’ve added in extra direct trap work, it’s been helping my neck feel better.
Not that I ever listen to doctors, but across the board every doctor that I’ve seen for my neck has told me to absolutely not stop lifting. Some have said it might be the only thing keeping me functional haha. They’ve said just my neck is bad enough that I could be on disability if I wanted. So just another reason for me to keep at it.
