April 24, 2012 - Squat & April 27, 2012 - Deadlift

April has not improved for me. Overhead sessions have just been garbage this month and family/work related stress isn't helping that. I'm going to have to work around this shoulder thing for now since my lower body sessions are going pretty well. The deadline I've set for myself is mid-May for my pressing to be back to passable, if not, I may not compete at the Pro/Am. I really hope that doesn't happen. Plan is to let my shoulders rest for about ten days and if still feeling awful, see a doctor. For now, this is what I have done. I've altered my routine so that I'm doing, squat day, press day, deadlift day and event day. Big change was moving the squat and deadlift days around. I'm used to doing deadlifts early in the week. I only did my squat and deadlift session for this week. I tried the pressing day and it started out ok but my entire upper back and neck cramped up really hard and I had to call it there after trying to work through it. Still pretty tense even right now.

April 24, 2012 - Squat

Dynamic Warm-ups

21" Cambered Squat Bar Front Box Squats
60x10
110x5
150x5
200x5
240x5
290x5
330x5
380x2

Safety Squat Bar Lunges
90x3/3
115x3/3
135x12/12
145x12/12
155x12/12

Glute Ham Raises
bwx12
bwx12
bwx12
bwx12
bwx12

31 Minutes of Stretching

Comments: Weird starting the week off with squats. Cambered bar swings like crazy, makes it really tough to come off the box. Would have liked to do better but whatever, I'll take it. Unsure if I'll be keeping this in the rotation. Actually not too sure about a lot of things. Next was lunges. Haven't done them in a while and I usually was doing them for much lower reps. These were awful (in a good way). First ten reps felt easy and I thought I had started too light. Turns out it was a very challenging session. Finished up with glute hams and stretching.



April 27, 2012 - Deadlift

Dynamic Warm-ups

16” Axle Block Pulls
272x5
322x3
362x3
412x2
452x2
502x2
542x2
432x3
432x3
432x3
432x3
432x3
432x3
432x3
432x3

Cambered Squat Bar Goodmornings
245x3
295x3
335x8
355x8
375x8 PR+5lbs

Underhand Grip Pulldowns (straps)
90x3
140x3
180x12
180x12
180x12

24 Minutes of Stretching

Comments: I was very worried about this workout. My legs were still incredibly sore from squats and lunges and my upper body from the base of my neck to the bottom of my shoulder blades was tense from whatever happened on my upper body workout. The chiropractor did an adjustment on my first rib which seemed to ease off some of the tension but he didn't see or feel anything in my shoulders, back or neck that would suggest I had torn anything or had anything out of place. That's at least comforting but still leaves me frustrated. Back to the workout. This routine is the modified Coan/Phillipi deadlift routine I had mentioned a few months ago. Just doing the main bits, sticking to my own assistance work. The big thing with this is doing it without a hard belt so this should be interesting. The goal is to hit my current 2rm on this beltless. Of course I screwed up on this workout. The top set was supposed to be 512 and not 502. I didn't want to use less weight than planned so I just added some more weight and readjusted the weights for the routine. Just going to move up a week in the routine. Actually felt good. Almost fun. Didn't seem to affect me much as I did quite well on gm's. Pull-ups have been bothering me (I feel like the one side was getting to the bar before the other) so I tried something different. Stayed light and did underhand grip for pulldowns. Really concentrated on keeping the shoulder blades down and it didn't bother my shoulders or feel weird at all. Hopefully this continues. Unsure if I'll be hitting events as most of my training places are closed since a lot of the guys are doing shows this weekend.