Lifting to Live

[Bill Anders]

7/11/22 - Monday

OP H @ 5'
45x5x2
75x3
105x1
125x1
145x3x4

BP L @ 5'
45x5x2
95x3 p
135x1 p
170x1
195x5x3

Music — Girlschool, C'mon Let's Go; L7, Fast and Frightening; Plasmatics, Country Fairs.

Notes —
- OP - Heavy Triples of 4x3, plus a +10lb jump over last week's 4x5. More intensity, less volume. I haven't done 145x2+ ever and singles went up 151x1x5 on 1/24/22, so I guess this would count as a multiple-rep PR. But I'm not really tracking that. Perhaps I should? I will, at least, revel in the fact that I was able to press those out after my six-month maintenance program. All good. At the end, I realized that I had a workout partner; I re-racked the bar after the final rep of the final set, and noticed that a half-dollar sized spider had dropped down off the rack crossbar and was hanging right about face level. I don't mind spiders, but there's no telling how that sudden appearance would have impacted my last set.
- BP - Light Day. All good and comfortable, as a Light Day should be. I'm liking this program's Light Day. As the Heavy Day Intensity increases and Volume decreases each week, the Light Day stays the same at 95% of the first week's 4x5. So as the workset gets heavier during the cycle, the Light day is 95%, then 90%, then 85% of that week's Heavy Day. Great for recovery, yet still heavy enough to not de-train. All good.

[J. Killmond]

145 for four press triples--absolutely you should track it, well done!

[Bill Anders]

As with all things, I now have a new spreadsheet to track Set X Rep PRs. Whether it turns out to be a motivator or just one more thing to keep track of and updated remains to be seen.

[Bill Anders]

7/12/22 - Tuesday

SQ H @ 5'
45x10x3
95x5
135x3 p
185x1 p
225x1 p
280x1
310x3x4

Chins — 5, 4, 4.

Music — Weezer, Island In The Sun; Pallbearer vs Black Sabbath, Over & Over; A Perfect Circle, The Hollow; Distillers, Beat Your Heart Out; blink-182, All The Small Things (great karaoke song!).

Notes —
- SQ - Heavy 4x3, with a +20lb jump over last week's 5x4. Except that I loaded 320lbs on the bar, which I didn't realize until I started my setup for my first set. Luckily I caught it before I lifted the bar from the hooks, as that would have been a very demoralizing mistake. Other than a 315x1x5 on 7/1/22, these are the first worksets above 300 since 3/1/22 (310x5 + 280x5x2). So understandably the first set seemed heavier than it really was. The rest of the worksets were definitely work, but manageable. Every third rep sure seemed like it slowed to a crawl, but I know that they didn't slow that much. All good.
- Chins - Just chins. On the first rep, I was gunning for six reps, then realized on my way up for #5 that I had been holding my breath the entire set. So #6 didn't happen. Breathing helps.

[Bill Anders]

7/14/22 - Thursday

BP H @ 5'
45x5x3
95x3
135x1
165x1
195x1
215x3x4

OP L @ 5'
45x5x2
75x3
105x1
125x5x3

Music — The Lion's Daughter vs Ministry, Burning Inside; Demon Hunter vs Prong, Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck; Thy Will Be Done vs NIN, March Of The Pigs; Pain vs The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby; Static-X vs Motley Crue, Looks That Kill; Godflesh vs AC/DC, For Those About To Rock (We Salute You).

Notes —
- BP - Heavy 4x3, +10lb jump over last week's 4x5. These are the first multi-rep sets at this weight or above since 217.5x5 on 12/27/21. Since then, only singles at this weight or above, peaking at 230x1x5 on 3/1/22, followed by a slow backward slide through the rest of my maintenance season. Just keeping track, my last successful multi-rep sets was 210x5x3 on 5/9/22. So this was a guess. All good. Like Monday's Heavy Press session, more than anything, I'm pleased at how well the maintenance programming kept me on par with where I was last December before I started my maintenance programming.
- OP - Light Day. Same as last week, and a great opportunity to work on the hip drive back off of the forward bounce, although during the second set I ended up on my toes too many times. Otherwise, all good.

[Bill Anders]

7/15/22 - Friday

DL H @ 8'
65x5x3 pc
135x4
185x2
225x1
275x1
305x1 h
340x3 s
305x3 s

SQ L @ 5'
45x5x2
95x5
135x3
185x1
225x1
260x5x3

Music — Amon Amarth, Get In The Ring; Demon Hunter f/ Max Cavalera, Defense Mechanism; Megadeth, We'll Be Back; Anthrax, Intro To Reality/Belly Of The Beast (getting pumped for The Melvins show tonight).

Notes — It has been one of those days, where all hell broke loose for the family late last evening, which meant a day of scrambling to get things organized, then pile on a day where all hell broke loose at the gig when it wasn't supposed to. Now I'm on a time crunch before evening events tonight. But I'm getting this done, even if I'm running on much less sleep than I'd like and it's hot enough that this will be a two shirt workout.
- DL - Heavy Day, +20lbs over last week's workset and +15lbs for the back-off set. The 340x3 was fine, although I was a bit soft on the last rep, so it turned out to be a longer struggle than it needed to be, but it locked out. The 305x3 went just fine. Heavy singles next week.
- SQ - Light Day. I won't lie, putting on a dry shirt right before the first workset is quite refreshing, helping perk up the senses, even if these are light sets. And it was soaked through by the third set. If I was squatting at my limit, that would make this a three shirt workout. All good.

[Mr. Bingley]

nice deads!!

[Bill Anders]

Thanks Mr Bingley! Getting back up there.

The winter/spring of doing heavy rack pulls and occasionally halting deads sure has helped. Although this weight, which is heavier than any of the haltings that I did, shows the rough spots off the floor (drifting off the shins, etc.). It will be interesting to see how the cycling of volume will work over the next few months.

[Mr. Bingley]

yeah, i get a lot of shin drift

[Bill Anders]

7/18/22 - Monday

OP H @ 2'
45x5x3
75x3
105x1
125x1
140x1
155x1x5 PR

BP L @ 5'
45x5x2
95x3
135x1
170x1
195x5x3

Music — The Melvins, Sweet Willy Rollbar/Revolve; The Melvins, Bear Hippie; and so many more. It was great to finally get to see them play live last Friday. And it was great to get back in the pit!

Notes — Cycle 1, Week 3 of this 4-Day Heavy/Light Split, so that means Heavy Singles for all of the lifts.
- OP - Heavy Singles. As noted above, a 5x1 PR; the old was 151lbs on 1/24/22 and a 152x1x2 on 1/30/22. So not only was this a 5x1 PR, but an "any rep" PR! I had programmed this weight in a few weeks ago, and then I started tracking different Set x Rep PRs, since that's where my programming is now. Yesterday I realized that this would be a 3lb jump over the previous and the negative thoughts started creeping in, knowing how inconsistent I had been through the maintenance season (which ended on 6/30/22 with a 135x5x3 and a 143x1x5 on 6/21/22 prior to that). So this morning I watched the videos that J. Killmond posted a bit over a week ago to get prepped, shortened my "Break the Glass" cue to "Explode, Break!" and cranked them out. I won't say that they were overly explosive, but at no point was I concerned about a sticking point. I could have, perhaps, added a few more pounds, but that will happen next time. All good.
- BP - Light Day. I just played with the "Explode, Break" cue to see how it carried over. At this weight, no concerns, so it will have to wait until Thursday's Heavy Singles. All good.