Sunday, March 21, 2021

March 20, 2021 – Week 1, Day 4

Mobility Prep
 
Heel Elevated Safety Squat Bar Bulgarian Split Squats (3-0-3-0 tempo)
bwx3/3
15’sx3/3 (kettlebells)
65x8/8
65x8/8
65x8/8
65x8/8

Safety Squat Bar Zercher Goodmornings (3 seconds negatives)
65x3
115x3
155x3
205x9 (miscounted)
225x8
235x8
245x8

Paused Sandbag Rows (short ways, 1 second holds)
175x5
225x5
275x5
275x5
275x5

Behind The Back Barbell Holds
135x5 seconds
225x5 seconds
315x5 seconds
385x5 seconds
455x15 seconds
365x30 seconds
365x30 seconds

Backward Sled Drags
375x75’ in 21.11 seconds
485x75’ in 24.13 seconds
620x75’ in 31.22 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: This was a long one. I say that because of the protocols and setup required for some of these exercises today. Shoulders weren’t really sore at all after a day of rest and doing car buffer on them. Slept well and was surprised it I woke up before noon. Getting ready to train and then a technical problem. Audio cable for my iPod to speakers just broke off. I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out something else for the time being. Ended up using my desktop, bumping up the master control volume, and facing the speakers toward the garage. Hopefully replacement arrives next week. Before I started started, I did some street sweeping of debris as I’d need that for later. Just that little bit of work let me know that my shoulders and upper back still were feeling this week’s trainings. So starting off with movement prep stuff. Legs and core. With part was the stepdowns that I had been doing for a while but with the knee issue (I had to wrap with a knee brace really tight and fight through tears the last time I did them) so I was leery about it. Not entirely pleasant that first set with the right leg but as I went, felt better. This was followed by a strange stance rdl and then bird dogs and side planks. The bird dogs really showed me how much the disc and nerve stuff still effects that one side. Then it was on to the training. I was really not looking forward to the first exercise of the day. Split squats with tempo. And a good deal of reps. I knew this was going to cook me good from my experiences doing tempo stuff when I was working around the disc pain relapse leading up to the 2019 Arnold. But that had been machines so balance was taken out of the equation. So options with this were either hold weight in the hands or use ssb. I elected to do ssb so as not to prefatigue my grip before the other stuff that would need grip. I started with my right leg because I assumed it would be the one that gave me fits. But I was wrong. Other than the initial discomfort to the knee, this was my good side. Holy crap was that another story for the left leg. So uncoordinated and the strength just isn’t there. I was wobbly and didn’t get through a single set without losing balance and having to grab my squat rack. Had a few missed reps so I might have actually done more than 8 reps on some sets on my non-dominant side. Lessons learned for next time. Start with that one and take full rest between sides. So lot of twitching going on in the legs and glutes after that. On to the next one. So next up being ssb gms zercher style with accentuated negatives. Been some time since I’ve done something like these. Plan here being 4x8. With how I was feeling after the split squats, I took things light to see how I felt. My first work set was too light as I lost count and did an extra rep. So kept adding weight but not going to hog on that since I needed to not make these super tough. Lowering these slowly wasn’t really that much of an issue. Wore knee braces on my arms for padding and to keep from slipping/sliding. In hindsight, probably could’ve done the last weight as my working weight for all sets. But I didn’t think I’d be recovered really from the split squats that quickly. So after that was sandbag rows. I was feeling some quad crapping by this point. Nothing really set here other than 3x5 and making sure to hold for 1-2ct. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel with these. Haven’t done holds on these in a few years too. So since I’ve been doing them long ways for a bit, decided to do them short ways. I wasn’t sure with the holds if I could do 275lbs but this seemed negligible in how it was affecting my strength with these so I ended up using that weight for 3x5. So after that was a new one for me as far as grip training. Behind the back holds. I’ve seen these before and it makes sense in that you can’t use the thighs to support the weight and assist the thumbs if done from the front. I didn’t really know what to expect as far as numbers here. Plan was 15 seconds with 1-2 seconds in the tank followed by 2 sets of 30 seconds with 3-5 seconds in the tank. Seconds in the tank can be tough to figure out. I started with just 135lbs and that was way too light so I took big jumps. I figured based off of that, I could do at least 405lbs for the top set. I think I got greedy here as I went for 455lbs and that was pretty much near the limit. I was counting these in my head so I might have been a second too soon to set down. Dropped 90lbs for the next two sets. I thought that might have been too much with how it felt in my hands but I managed it. I hadn’t rechalked my hands so I did for the next set and that felt a good bit more comfortable. Looking back at the video, they were both over 30 seconds so that was good. So then the last item of the day. Sled drags. Haven’t really done these in some time but I figured that I wouldn’t be too far off what I could normally do since for the past few months, I’ve been doing backwards treadmill stuff for 2 minutes before sessions so this seemed to be something I would be conditioned for. The only thing really was what shape my quads were in after the split squats since those were brutal. Started out pretty light and it went about as expected. Plan here was increasing difficulty and trying to do 75’ runs between 20-40 seconds to finish. This was a time vampire since I needed to reset the course each time since the difference in difficult of the sled drag uphill vs downhill is huge. This did give me a good rest for the quads between sets though. So from that first set, I felt that 110lbs was a good jump. Not sure if I was just getting warmed up or if the increase in weight allowed me to lean back into more but this felt easier than planned. And only 3 seconds slower. I had expected this to be closer to 27 seconds or so. So I figured that I needed to go a bit heavier for the last set. I was originally planning 555lbs since that is the most I’ve done for more than 30’ but with things feeling how they were, I had moved it up to 575lbs and maybe 585lbs. But after that easy middle set, I went more. 600lbs. But then last moment, added 20lbs more to it. That was a good one. Had to work for this one. Surprised that this was only 10 seconds slower than my first run honestly. Took a bit of time to put stuff away. Stretched while waiting for my roast to cook. Didn’t ice my knees after this one as I felt it was important for the muscle worked to go through the inflammation process unabated. A week of training down. Curious what next week will bring.


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