Just trying to get back to not overcomplicating things and go back to the freedom of lifting weights how I want to lift them without all the background rubbish of overcueing and doing this the “best” way. I think that’s part of my problem - there is a time and a place to think about these things but there’s also something to be said about not going into the gym worrying about all this stuff. I would confidently say that most of the strongest people in my gym can barely talk about how or why they do things a certain way - and part of me sees things they do and thinks “they’d get better results if they this, that, and this”, but they are miles ahead of me and already smashing it by just applying themselves. A friend of mine benched 170kg natural the other day, probably weighs about 125kg. Leading up to that he’d already done 140kg x 10 and 150 x 5, reracked the bar, grabbed it and got a 6th rep. None of that session was planned, he just got at it.
Maybe after my time off I was full of hubris and lost my way. I told myself “I know what I’m doing, I need to >insert a million different things< and get back to where I was (which was nothing special in the first place)”.
Recently I’ve been playing with my bench press grip because I’d always kind of wriggled my hand into the bar and then lightly put pressure on the bar to roll it and repeated that a few times before it felt most stable and strong for the unrack. But that’s not “correct”! And you rarely ever see people do it! It’s made me experiment with all kinds of things. I’ve put in a lot of shitty sets that could have been good if I just stuck to the way my body had naturally organized how it stacks itself for years with no problem.
cdep89, just lift the fucking weights.
PS: Romanian Deadlifted 145kg x 8,8,10 last week. Confident of hitting 147.5kg for the same tomorrow because of the momentum I feel I’m carrying in certain exercises.
In a good vibe of progress at the moment. Most of my exercises are raising pretty linearly. Looking forward to my bench on Sunday. RDL’d 150kg x 8,8,10 and actually felt I had a bit more on that last set, so much so I’m wondering if I counted my reps wrong - I’m can’t see how I would have though.
Not the best session today. Since getting rid of conventional deadlifts and squatting twice a week, I wonder if I really need deloads any more. Usually I take a lighter week 4-6weeks in when I hit the kind of session I had today, but I’m going to go ahead with squats tomorrow and see how they feel before I put it down to fatigue. I’m off to watch Spurs vs Forest next Sunday so will be having the full weekend off anyway. With that in mind, going lighter Friday would essentially give me 4 days off - although something I’d rather not do when so many lifts are in such good momentum and I’m not really training with less than 8 reps on anything (except for submax squats).
My main problem today was a failure to connect to scapular depression. Bench was shruggy, not able to do shoulder circles and my usual warm-ups failed me. Even on tricep pushdowns I wasn’t able to depress my shoulders so they just felt awkward. Barbell rows felt awesome though which is strange when they also require depression.
Band or stick shoulder dislocations
Band pullaparts + external rotations
30sec hang off pull-up bar or a psuedo-hang off a lat pulldown
And a prayer stretch to release my thoracic.
All of the above is usually enough for me. Today everything felt off though. I guess I did use the regular bar instead of the v-grip for the hangs but I struggle to see how that could derail a session.
Squatted today, everything felt heavy again so didn’t force anything. I’ve started messing with my stance again. Whenever I get moving in a good direction with squats I then start questioning. Someone took a picture of me not hitting depth with my current stace when it felt like I really was. Before the adductor tear everything was smooth and I never even had to think about this stuff. I think I definitely used to be a little wider and maybe it’s time to go back there to test the scar tissues tolerance. It sucks moving forward to then have to recalibrate things.
I took like 20-30% weight off the rest of the season but still bashed some could hard curls out. Instead of doing 3x5 and 1x5+(AMRAP) on squats. I ended up just doing 2x5 at the same weight as last week, took 20kg and did a set of 12 with wider form, and then added another 10kg back on and did a set of 4. I don’t know if that can count as a deload as such but I just didn’t have it in me today so will not put pressure on my self for the rest of the week.