Lotta funkiness going on today. First, my trap and shoulder were bugging me more than they have in at least a month - and that was all day, before even lifting. Second, there were two strange things at the gym today. First was a dude bigger than me. At Chi-Chi Equinox, this is astoundingly rare; especially when someone is bigger in a non-fake-inflated-bodybuilder-muscles kinda of way. I'd guess he was 6'4" probably 275-285 but definitely leaner than I am. Broader shoulders. He was using 7 plates on the t-bar row and 3 plates on the bench when I walked in. After watching him a bit, I could see he didn't really 'train,' as we define it, but he wasn't loud and obnoxious in his bro-ness as most guys who look like him are, in my experience. He was doing 1/2 ROM with tons of momentum on the t-bar, and strapped in for his bench press, but despite that, he was clearly strong. He ended up doing 405 for a triple in the bench (all reps using only the middle ROM), and a whole bunch of assistancey stuff after that, but just seeing a guy who looked like that was cool. If he had more information and/or wanted to train correctly, I have no doubt he'd be much, much stronger than I am.
Second, there was a guy who looked almost exactly like Jordan. Except taller, way less gainzzzz, and with a full head of hair. Weird.
Anyway, training. My shoulder bugged me quite a bit. I also used wrist wraps for the first time; I threw a pair in with a recent order from Rogue, since my wrists were unlocking in my heavy press sets sometimes. They're not particularly stiff, but they're fine for what I need them for right now. I didn't try them on bench, but used them for the last warm-up and all work sets of the press today.
Bench Press
335x5, 355x2
Notes: A lot of left shoulder/side weakness and some discomfort; again only showing up for work-sets. Warm-ups were fine, and I did some paused reps throughout the warm-up, which felt good. Disappointed, but right now my 5RM is probably not much more than I can do for 5x5 across because of the left shoulder issue. Dr. P will be taking a look at it this weekend.
Here's a Double Meat shot of the 335x5. I used this angle because I thought it would show me a big difference between the two sides, but it's pretty even. I can just feel the weakness oozing out of the left side during the last two reps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrz4ch6gfEk&edit=v
Press
190x5, 195x5, 197.5x5, 195x5, 190x5
Notes: Shoulder bothered me some here, but it was more a feeling of general discomfort than a specific distracting pain. This is a 4.5 lb jump from last week, in terms of average weight per rep over the 5x5, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised they were significantly harder. The 5th rep at 197.5 was definitely slow. But no real grinds. Wrist wraps felt awkward at first, and I was awkward with putting them on, but by the end I liked them quite a bit.
Chins
13,12,12,12
Notes: Just added one rep to the first set
DB Bicep Curls
55x8x2
Notes: First set was definitely a PR in terms of doing these strict; rested two minutes and the second set was...less strict. Didn't do any rows, because I'm reducing UB Pulling volume the day before my heavy pulling days.
DB Lateral Raises
30x13x2
Notes: Less reps than last week, but kept my arms straighter.