April 24, 2015 – Week 9, Day 3

Dynamic Warm-ups

Barbell Push Presses
45x10
80x5
80x5
110x3
110x3
140x1
170x1
200x1
230x2
230x2
230x2
230x2
230x2

Close Grip Barbell Bench Presses
45x10
95x5
135x5
185x3
235x3
285x1
325x5
325x3
325x1

Overhead Rope Extensions
120x12
120x12
120x12

Neutral Grip Pull-ups
bwx3
bw+25x6
bw+25x6
bw+25x6

31 Minutes of Stretching

Comments: I’ll admit, energy was a bit low this session. Previous two workouts this week have been brutal. My guts and the muscles in my ribcage feel sore and that hasn’t happened for a while. Laughing has hurt the past two days haha. On push press, I tried to make it a point of engaging my hips into the drive. My friend Mike Mastell had recently put up an article on the log press and the one cue that stood out was about not just using the leg drive. I need to change how I think about it not as leg drive but lower body drive. I had noticed it the week before my deload that my best reps were the ones where I used my hips. Slightly longer rests on these sets. Not hard but not super-duper easy. For this session, the only thing I knew would be trouble would be the close grip bench stuff. I ended up having to wait a bit for a bench that I fit on. It felt heavy and I was kind of surprised I actually got past three reps on the first set; granted I did air hump the last two. Then I misgrooved the last rep of the second and just barely managed to save it. I was very happy the single was the only thing left haha. Then it was the overhead rope extensions. Much like the changing of the leaves signaling the beginning of Autumn, these let me know the cycle and session are coming to an end. Not bad, just accumulation of fatigue made it go from walk in the park at the start to almost hitting the wall at the end. Added weight to pull-ups. I felt it was enough weight added that I should do a brief warm-up with no weights just to be safe. They felt good, no issues with my biceps. A good bit of stretching to end the session and then home to eat two large carnivore pizzas.