February 19, 2016 – Week 5, Day 3

Dynamic Warm-ups

Barbell Strict Presses
45x10
75x5
75x5
105x3
105x3
135x1
165x1
195x1
225x1
255x1
255x1
255x1
255x1
255x1
255x1

Close Grip Barbell Bench Presses
45x10
95x5
135x5
185x3
225x3
275x1
320x3
320x3
320x8

Super Set: Dumbbell Trap 3 Raises/Cybex Dual Axis Rear Delts
10’sx12—100x12
10’sx12—100x12
10’sx12—100x12
10’sx12—100x12

Pulldowns
180x12
180x12
180x12

40 Minutes of Stretching

Comments: Another upper body workout session. Not much changes from the last heavy workout. Super busy when I got to the gym but I didn’t have to wait too long to use the power rack. Strict pressing for singles with short rests again. More weight, fewer sets and a bit more rest between sets. Starting off doing the light warm-ups in the tiered squat rack until the power rack opened up. Weight felt heavier than I would have liked warming up. The increase in weight was definitely noticed. Definitely progress as last time I was doing this weight, I was allowed to take as much rest as I wanted between singles. Knees ached like crazy just standing there with the weight. Difficulty across the sets was pretty much the same. My rack position felt the best on the last two sets. I did push the weight out in front of me on the fifth set so that was tougher than it should have been. Close grip benching was up next on the agenda. Same as past workouts but with a bit more weight. Increased weight meant I’d need to adjust the warm-ups to make sure I was ready for the working weight. The weight felt heavy on the first set but it moved fast. Second set I didn’t setup just right so it was a bit slower and I had to put in more effort to get the reps. Max rep set went better than I expected with how I was feeling. Managed a tough eight (the last rep was really tough as I banged into the rack pegs and had to navigate around them to finish). Past few workouts definitely have me back in the 400lbs territory with the narrower grip. Now if only I could get these to be my strict press numbers haha. Upper back superset again but with some changes. Increased the weight on the machine part with a decrease in reps. Not much difference really; still fatigue inducing haha. I had to wait a bit to use the setup though as an elderly man decided he needed to use it. Then on to what I thought would be easy and light pulldowns. I was wrong. These were toughies. I started out really trying to use my back muscles to move the weight, which involved a slower tempo. However, fatigue built real fast this became a mighty struggle at the end. Pump in my back and lower biceps. I was apparently very tight when I got home as I had to stretch for a ton.