Decent.
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Decent.
Boom! Upper body swole patrol
This three day per week upper body only thing + adding back in assistance stuff I haven't done since our days of training together at equinox in 2013-2014 has been fun. My lower body is a different, and sad, story. But my back does finally seem to be easing up a bit so maybe less sad soon.
The good news is that this has shown that, when uninjured, my upper body is still really in solid Intermediate territory in terms of speed of training adaptation. I can't progress every week, but I seem to be able to progress every other week, as long as I modulate volume and intensity appropriately. Not indefinitely, but this has been a solid run of about 2 months with several bench and press PRs and a couple well placed deload weeks. I'm not surprised, since my squat and DL seem to be in a similar place of being able to make runs of PRs every 2-3 weeks, for 2-3 months at a time before needing a break, when I'm uninjured. It's just been so long since my upper body has been uninjured - nearly 18 months since before I tore my labrum, and worked my way back up - that it's easy to forget I could still do this.
I think I can make one more run at PRs either at the end of next week or the week after that, before returning to a lower stress dose of training for a while and being happy with my gainz. It'd be awesome to run this indefinitely like a Freshly minted Intermediate on his first run with weekly progress, but that's probably a recipe for getting hurt again. I'll go for one more gainz cycle and then switch to some less demanding programming for a while to recover.
Since I'll need to get my umbilical hernia fixed soon anyway, the timing here will be good.
Well then
https://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/05...bb7-wm.jpg?v=3
...or a struttin kitty!
Wolf - awesome PR's, 445 is huge, as are the press numbers. Well done.
It's funny, I've been doing this for a pretty long time at this point and am still somehow surprised when I feel OK a few days after a hard upper body workout but then get under the bar and those muscles are still fatigued. I know squats and DLs affect me more systemically, the the BP and PR fatigue is more localized and I can generally feel fine and recovered but those muscles still aren't. But two days after a serious squat and DL PR day, I'll still know even when lying down or walking around that I had that big day two days ago. With bench and press, I feel fine, don't notice the fatigue till I get under the bar and start lifting. I know all this, I program with it in mind, but somehow it's still kind of surprising when it actually happens.
And it happened. And I took it easyish today.
Press
215x2, 235x1 @8, 215x5 @9
Notes: I think this is the most weight I've ever pressed beltless. They were a little slow and I could feel my arms and shoulders still fatigued from Friday, but not TOO bad. Might be ready for one more Press PR attempt Friday, followed by a big BP volume workout, and then one more BP 1RM attempt the following week.
Bench Press - closeish grip
255x5, 285x5, 305x5 @6 - paused
285x5x2 @7 - tempo 3-0-3
Notes: Needed to lift lighter, didn't want to feel like a dweeb, so did harder variations. Felt worse than they moved. #muhfeeeelz
305x5 paused and 285x5 tempo bench on IG with bonus background dancing (not by me)
Ring Rows
BWx10x5
LTEs
87x10, 102x10
I'm sorry, were you benching there ?
good thing we stare at the ceiling,
no distrations