New “pose.” Side:
Progress:
Another great shoulder mwod. First rib and levator scapulae mostly: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/free-your-scap-free-your-mind.html
OHP from pins set at where the bar would be normally: a bunch of singles ramping to 130. (yay!)
Top quarter OHP (~6 inches from lockout): singles ramping to a few at 150 or 155 (not sure). Usually with a second or two hold at the top.
A few unchallenging dumbbell power snatches up to 73 (or maybe 78) just to groove technique. I think I tend to over-extend my high lumbar spine on these.
more OHP from pins: cluster reps (maybe more like cluster sets since the rests were 20-30 seconds) all over the place. Trying to explode each rep, and rest long enough so I can do it again. Did a bunch. Ended with two reps at 95 really blasting the bar up. I focused on exploding from the start instead of just accelerating toward the end. As always with these things, I think I actually saw improvement from the start to the finish which is pretty cool.
~20 minutes hitting the bag. Mostly just grooving my right straight technique back down (I don’t have so much trouble with the hip swing but driving off the floor is pretty slow coming back). Started working on some hooks, some footwork, and some real basic combos too. Hands up, head down pretty much the whole time. Crappy technique aside, I am freakin powerful compared to a few months ago! I had to stop cause my knuckles were actually hurting too much through the shitty gym-supplied gloves. It’s a good problem to have!
Get your heavy gloves and wraps mailed to you from home
Tuesday:
RDLs: some highish reps and ramp to two doubles at 225 (I did these double overhand and my grip was giving out hahaha). Somebody was using the rack so I had to do something to pass the time.
Front squats: ramp to a single at 205, tried it again but my upper back lost it. then a single at 185. I have mixed feelings about front squats. So I switched to
Dumbbell rows (straps): ramp to 143 for a triple. tried another triple but it was getting weak and sloppy. So i did a bunch of singles and finished with a double with each arm. Which was a bit iffy for my left but good with the right.
Face pulls: ramp to a few sets at 195 for highish reps. I ended the last two with 10-20 second holds. The trainer was pretty cool and let me hang weights all over the stack.
All this was done with only 500 calories in me all day and nothing during the session but water. I just ate well over 3000 calories in one sitting. How’s that for fancy post workout nutrition? Hahhaa
My lower traps etc were pretty fried from yesterday so I didn’t do the dips. Instead I did dumbbell bench press which sucked like all forms of bench pressing do.
DB bench: ramp to 78’s for 1. ONE! 
I tried it two or three more times with about a minute of rest each time but I couldn’t get it at all. I can always get them a few inches off my chest pretty easily but it all goes to shit after that. I’m using a very tucked elbow approach which may have something to do with it. I’m also using no leg drive at all as I don’t really know how. So then I did 4 reps (basically failure) with the 68’s.
PJR pullovers: ramp to 88 for a bunch of triples. on the last rep of the second to last set I felt a twinge in the outside of my left long head after bouncing the rep out of the stretch. It hurt a bit, but I’m an idiotic asshole so I did another triple (with a bit more control of the bottom…) which definitely strained it, though it did hold up. Feels like a pull/very minor tear. It hurts when I stretch the long head. Hopefully my teenager HGH and unlimited food and sleep’ll take care of it by the time I do pullovers again.
Kind of a shitty session, but I’m definitely progressing. My wrist was fine on the pullovers.
no time for hammer curls or farmers walks.
Thursday session 1:
Slightly cheated from the bottom front raises (cause of my triceps): ramp to triples with a 68 lb DB. Treating these like a big movement, not isolation work. Felt great for my lower traps too.
Crucifix for time with I think the 23’s.
PJR pullovers - super high reps with my left hand with 18 lb to flush some blood through. plus some other stuff like that too.
Slightly cheated hammer/pinwheel curls ramp to the 43’s for ~8. Did each arm by itself.
Hang from the bar with good scapular positioning for a bit. Felt good on my back.
This was all done on no food at all.
Probably’ll be back later for pullups and farmers walks.
Thursday session 2:
My mid traps are paining me.
Pullups: ramp to 55 for doubles. After one or two, the last rep of each double was a little low. After a bunch, I switched to singles at 55, then singles at 45.
Farmers walks: ramp to 103’s for a bunch. Gym closed before I could get in as many sets as I would have preferred. These were pretty intense today for some reason. 
I rolled out my triceps and my legs earlier today with the collar of my dumbbell handle. It’s all feeling good for squats tomorrow!
Friday: I only got ~3 hours sleep last night and barely maintenance calories.
ATG (high bar, as always) squats: a few doubles with 265. Finished with a single. A bit longer rests than I’m accustomed to and way less sets. A few ab wheel rollouts and renegade rows in between some of the sets. (my friend was with me. In exchange for teaching him how to OHP, I have to “do abs” haha. At least I’ve got him doing some moderately useful core stuff instead of endless crunches)
Preacher curls - 2 sets of high-ish reps whatever. just to keep my biceps tendons healthy.
reverse cable curls - some sets of high-ish reps at 30.
My legs still weren’t completely fresh for the squats. Gotta work on work capacity for them. For some reason the top range of my squat was really strong/fast. Plates rattling and all. I’m doing something right…
Stretching my levator scapulae really helped the mid trap pain. Interesting.
My tweaked long head is getting better nicely. My shoulders are much sorer than I’d expect.
Try Haney shrugs tomorrow.
^ youre on with the DB challenge. Strapless, video submitted etc.
I found the best way to increase work capacity for squats is to squat more with higher rep ranges, also to just go fucking crazy. After my max effort dead and squat session yesterday, i sat down and played Skyrim for 12 hours straight - today no soreness in legs because of all the work over three years. You’ll get there mate
Sweet. Strapless’ll be a good challenge for me. I oughta just get my hands on some chalk.
Go fucking crazy? Hell yeah! I think I see some widowmakers in my future.
Saturday:
Good morning (low bar) from pins - longish rests, ramp to a single at 315. No more cause I want to take it easy on my back which I tweaked a bit yesterday. Also, the gym was closed (sometimes they lock the doors wrong and you can get in) so I didn’t want to push my luck and get thrown out with anyone hearing the bar clanging around.
Haney shrugs in the smith machine: highish reps at 1 pps, 2 sets of mid range reps at 1 plate plus 1 25 plate per side, 2 sets of highish reps at 1 pps. Usually I’d hold the last rep for a few seconds. Reverse grip, so this was actually a fair challenge to my grip lol. I kinda like these for my rear delts. Leaning away is the key. At least for now they work better with high reps.
This was done with only a bit of whole wheat bread beforehand and no pwo. Cafeteria schedule is weird on the weekend.
Sunday: Rest day. Just checking in to say that my mid-traps area has been hurting pretty much all week. Like last time I pulled it. Hopefully I can manage/fix it better this time. Pretty sure my levator scapulae is the problem.
Also I’ve had some weird rear delt/rotator pain since Thursday. Hurts at end-range of internal rotation.
I’m taking Monday off too cause I want to give my lower back another day and I think I should probably baby my upper back/neck a bit more.
Tuesday:
Deadlift (straps): ramp to fail at 305, then fail at 295. Couldn’t even get it off the floor. grrr. So then I did 225 for 5 (strapless, mixed grip).
Dips: ramp to ~6 singles (about one third the usual) at 100. (slightly longer rests than I’m used to) Missed the last one. then BW for something like 20. A few reps shy of failure.
PJR pullovers: warmup then two or three sets of 6 at 83.
(No chocolate milk, just water)
Kind of a crappy day. But judging by the 1RM calculator I’ve probably met my dip goal. So that’s good.
Wednesday update: I slacked off a bit on warming up for the dips and now I’m paying for it. Little bit of left collarbone pain all day. Pullups might not be in the cards today. We’ll see.
Wednesday: Low bar powerlifting style squat - ramp with short rests to a single at 285. I had at least another 10 or 20 pounds in me, but I wanted to take it a bit easy since I haven’t done these in a while. The freakin low bar position was the limiting factor honestly.
then 3 pullups with good shoulder positioning and almost chest to bar. the traction felt good on my back.
So then I did ~8 sets of ~6 reps PVC pipe assisted glute/ham raises in the pulldown machine. With pretty short rests. Judging by these, I think I could just barely do one or two unassisted glute/ham raises. that’ll be fun to try sometime.
Again, I didn’t have my chocolate milk with me for this.
A pretty lame session, but it was fun.
Wednesday session 2: After I spent about 45 minutes wandering around in the woods shirtless. I honestly think cold tolerance is good “assistance work” hahah. Not to mention how awesome it is to be able to walk around half-naked while it’s in the low 30’s.
Bent-over row: (more specifically a Yates row, I believe) ramp to ~8 quite strict triples with short rests - the first few at 195, the last few at 185. The last set, I remembered I’d originally planned to do them from the floor haha. But the gym was closing so i did 135 for a bunch horizontal from the floor. Believe it or not, I think I’m a good deal stronger with a horizontal torso and rowing from the floor than with the Yates style. These were all double overhand so I got in a little grip work.
Anyway, these fucked with my upper back. It’s definitely tied in with my neck. I managed it by digging into my mid-traps with the edge of the rack in between sets and by keeping my head/neck neutral as best as I could.
Reverse grip bench from pins ~2-3 inches from my chest. If I were to arch really hard I could touch my chest to it. Rather wide grip. ramp to ~12 singles at 175. I actually kinda enjoyed this. Considering that I was weak as hell at this, I may need to keep it. Rests were slightly longer than usual.
Chinups (almost chest to bar) - ramp to two triples at 45 (then I couldn’t get myself as high as I wanted on the last rep) so 7 more triples at 35. Then I did 30 chinups, as many sets as necessary, in as little time as possible. (A few of them weren’t quite high enough for my taste.)
Both of these exercises made my levator scapulae or whatever it is feel much better. I can always manage it by keeping my head/neck neutral too. I wish I’d known that the first time I pulled it a few months ago.
Chinups are also easier on my shoulders than pullups are.
and again I had no pwo.
with the stiffness in neck/traps area, get a really hard tennis ball and peel the fluff off. then use that against a wall and roll everything out, feels amazing
That’s a great idea, thanks.
Friday: I’m feeling kinda beat up (not quite enough food and sleep recently). I decided to train anyway but turns out the gym’s closed. I guess it’s a sign from the gods.
I did a few triples of knees to feet to vertical jumps. Surprised at how powerful I was. thanks to stormthebeach for that.
Also, my abs are weirdly sore. I’m pretty sure it’s from the benching lol.
My short term goals, since I’m on a new page: Start (October 5) — current ---- by December 5.
Dips - doubles at 70 — long rest singles at 100 on 11/15/11, so I prob have this one now — 1RM: 110
BTN push press - singles at 165 — single at 185 (slight dip) — 1RM: 200
Military press - triples at 120 (possibly actually 110) — single at 130 (from pins) — 1RM: 160
ATG squat - 3RM: 245 — doubles at 265 — 1RM: 315
Deadlift - estimated 1RM 308 (straps) — single at 305 — 1RM: 350 (without straps would be kick ass)
One arm row - 103 x a whole freakin bunch (straps) — triples at 143 (straps) — 3RM: 160 (without straps would also be kick ass)
weighted pullups - unknown — doubles at 55 — 1RM: 105
Dumbbell power snatch - 73 — 85 — 103
Power clean - 165 — 175 (180 full) — 205
Saturday: did a few hill sprints. Fasted.
Hungry as hell after that. Also nauseous at the same time. Not a good combination…
Gym was closed but since I took yesterday off I went down in the woods where there’s a bunch of rocks and did a bunch of overhead pressing, some throwing, and some rows/dealifts. Somehow I’ve always felt stronger pressing rocks than bars. Something about the neutral grip maybe.
I’ve got a bit a nasty sore throat and very little time. Today (Monday)'s off and tomorrow probably will be too.