06 September 2021
Weight - 212
Squat
Bench
GHR - BWx10, (BW+10)X(10,10)
Chin - 7,6,4
Reason #327 I want my own home gym. I get to the gym all ready to go, and find out they're closing in 30 minutes for Labor Day. They posted it on Facebook, but I'm not on Facebook, so...
There was no way to get the squats or bench done in time, so I decided to punt on those. I did a very rapid warmup on the elliptical, and headed straight to the GHD. I tried a glute/ham raise for the first time and actually found it quite doable. I paused at the back extension at first so I could be sure and get the hip/knee transition right. After a few learning reps and then a bodyweight set of 10, I grabbed a 10 lb bumper and hugged it for two more sets of 10. It's probably the same difficulty with my arms in front of my chest rather than unweighted over my head, but it's a start. I'll just add a bit of weight as I can, making a linear progression out of it. I may also try to use sets of 15 at the start and let it slowly drop to sets of 10 once it's legitimately heavy.
Due to time, I hurriedly squeezed in the chins between GHR sets. They didn't go particularly well because I was sucking wind pretty quickly, but it was that or nothing at all. Maybe I need to find a way to add conditioning in. I have the Prowler article saved and the gym has Torque Tanks, so I could maybe do it a couple times a week.
I'm going to stick with Wednesday as my light squats/deadlift day and Friday as heavy squats/cleans. The light squats will let me groove back into it after a small break, and hopefully I'm rested and ready for the deads. (My hamstring is still tender. It worked just fine for GHRs but if it's bothersome during deadlift warmups, the 405 may have to wait. It'll be a game day decision at this point.) I hope the presses don't suffer too much, but honestly a small break won't hurt. I've been beat up the last few weeks. This seems a good time to take advantage of the situation as best as I can.
Bill: Thanks for that link! I read through it and have it bookmarked as I'm sure I'll come back to it. Bill Starr didn't program deadlifts, so it makes sense that he'd have to add good mornings or deadlift variations to get the lower back work in. I can see the value to something like that for intermediate programming, however, especially if/when deadlifts get programmed to every other week. For now I'll keep the GHRs in place and see what they do for me.