Sunday, August 22, 2021

August 21, 2021 – Week 5, Day 4

Mobility Prep
 
Inverse Leg Curls
+180(ast)x3
+135(ast)x8
+130(ast)x8
+125(ast)x8

Safety Squat Bar Box Squats (20” box)
65x10
165x2
255x2
325x2
385x2
435x2
490x4
417x4

Lying Leg Curls
90x5
135x3
160x12
160x12
160x12

Reverse Band Hack Squats (5 second negatives, LB’s)
emptyx5
+50x5
+90x5
+140x10
+180x10
+230x10

Seated Safety Squat Bar Upper Back Goodmornings (3 seconds holds)
345x90 seconds

Copenhagen Planks
bwx30/30 seconds
bwx30/30 seconds
bwx30/30 seconds

Quad Fallbacks (17” target)/Seated Calf Raises (3 seconds holds)/Kettlebell Tibialis Anterior Raises
bwx8/90x10/44’sx15
bwx8/90x10/44’sx15
bwx8/90x10/44’sx15

Stretching
 
Comments: I’m anxious to get back to normal training. Unencumbered and unbound. Starting to stress that I’ll essentially only have 6 weeks potentially of not doing optimal training towards my goal (assuming given the go ahead this coming Friday). So like four serious event training sessions left. Maybe two sessions in the deadlift suit. I’ll have to decide on if I’m doing the open or pro. Hopefully I only have this for another week. Can’t control that. In the now. A different day. Gym was closed until 6PM today due to hosting a powerlifting meet. Had to figure out logistics on whether it made sense to just go Sunday or try and figure things out for a really late Saturday. I went with the night training. So I slept in and headed out to the gym at 5:00PM. Got there with like 15 minutes until 6:00PM. Honestly, it looks like I could’ve gone in at that time but I waited until 6. Just two people in there so lonely evening of training.  Got set for warm-ups. I was feeling warm but not nearly as exhausted as I was feeling last week. It wasn’t until later I realized that some of the industrial fans were off so that could be why I was feeling better but still sweating like crazy. Looking at the workout, it seemed less like an event day and more like regular gym day. No event anything. Maybe this was due to it being late in the day to try and make stuff go easier. Also could be from reporting how beat I was last workout and also could be just that Drew wanted me to do more work on these things after I showed him all the machines at the gym. So starting things off with inverse leg curls. A way to do more Nordic curls. Or a variation I suppose. Had been doing negatives before the injury to the arm and then the band assisted ones at home. So these were to be a primer. I was advised to do 3x8 with 2RIR. I was hoping that I’d be able to use less assistance than what I needed the last time I did them. Which was also the first time I did them. I needed 225lbs of weight added to do them then. Didn’t care for them and I ended up needing to take a break from training due to pain relapse in my discs. That was October 2019. So just shy of 2yrs at this point. I figured with all the torture I’ve put my legs through, I should be able to knock off weight assistance. And I was right. 135lbs felt too light for me but I had thought that would be the top end for these so I took off 5lbs a set. So improvement of 100lbs on these. More so considering I was only able to do 6 reps then and able to do 8 reps with some in the tanks. So that was a good start. Then on to the high box squats with the ssb. I was a bit surprised these were to be this heavy again after how they felt last week. Plan was to work up in doubles to a smooth set of 4 reps and then do a drop down set of 4 reps. Some confusion on that last bit as the suggested had 40lbs less than top set while the instructions said 85% of top weight. Suggested was 485lbs for the top set based off what I’ve done these past two weeks. I was a little nervous about how the knees would feel but they actually felt good. Perhaps the hamstring primer is a good thing. I had been thinking that it would take away from these with the extra hamstring work. I felt good and didn’t feel like I needed as many work up sets. I usually do 50-40lbs jumps but I did 50lbs as my smallest jump. Smooth set of four I guess depends on the state of arousal as My last warm-up could be that if I didn’t get excited for the lift like I did for the top set. I went up 5lbs from what was projected. Push what I can. I knew I had this after the first rep (what to say after the unrack but that can be misleading with how these go). Only rep that wasn’t smooth was the last one as I got pitched forward. But I know I had at least another rep in the tank there. I went with the 15% drop just to be on the safe side for a pretty easy set of four reps. Then it was time for machines. Lying leg curls. Regular style, 3x12 with 2RIR. I tried to figure out what that would be after what I’ve done for reps and the last session with getting that negative strength up. I assumed that I could have done like 17 reps with 145lbs and that maybe added 3 reps to that with the past few sessions on negatives that came out to 160lbs and that ended up being perfect. Next up was a new one. Using the somewhat new hack squat machine. But using band assistance. Idea was just enough to make the empty sled feel almost weightless. Now the weight on the machine was behind so anchoring was a little tricky. I’m not sure how much assistance is given on these since I set it up at an angle using a rack and barbell. So the plan here was getting a full ROM and doing these with a long negative each rep. Warm-up in fives and then do 3x10 with the difficult increasing each set. I was very happy that I fit on this machine as that had been a concern as sometimes I am too tall for stuff (like every ride at Hershey Park). It can be tricky to gauge reps in the tank on stuff with controlled eccentrics like this. Also unknown as haven’t used this machine or done this movement in over a decade at least. Sometimes these machines that are plateloaded and have limits (no more than 700lbs) can feel different as weight gets added. With how my first work set went, I had thought that 20lbs was what I’d be doing but then I decided to push things and I’m glad I did as I got much closer to what I should be doing by the end. I expect DOMS by next weekend haha. Back to the safety squat bar. Upper back gms again. I had been told that I could stick at the same weight. Try and do more reps in the time limit and try to “contract” harder. I ended up going up 10lbs as I had an extra 10lbs on the bar from earlier. Still feeling strong but didn’t feel as “comfortable” on the upper back this time. Felt like it was digging in a little on the left side. I think I was also a little worried I’d lose it since my shirt was super sweaty as well as my hair. But I got it done. Now the next part of the session was for inner thigh muscles. Plan was to use a machine for this but this is one of the machines that they don’t have. So I was advised to do Copenhagen planks for 3 sets of 30 seconds. And it was then that I put it together that this was a leg exercise and not some strange abdominal one. I kept focusing on the plank portion. Duh. Things have improved with my knee as I get pain on these sometimes but none this time. I also believe this is the longest I’ve held these consistently. So that is a good sign too. Last bit was a triset again. I was not looking forward to doing the quad fallbacks. They had felt ok on Tuesday but that had been the case last week too and then my ankles felt like they wanted to explode doing them last weekend. So gun shy on these. I did have the option to do sissy squats but they weren’t optimal. They felt like they usually do. My left hamstring cramped up after the second rep, otherwise I think I’d have done them straight through without adjusting. Felt fine the other two sets. Just have to get that thought out of my head. The other partners in this were seated calf raises and tib raises again. I decided to push these. Stop messing around and just put 90lbs on the calf raises. For the tib raises, I forgot that I had done 16kgs last time and thought I had done 20kgs. Hardly noticed though. The ROM on those is small. Seated calf raises are becoming the hardest part as I get such a contraction on these that I worry I’ll cramp up haha. It was a bit past 9:00PM at this point (I left the parking lot at 9:15PM) so I took and assessment. I was a disgusting, sweaty mess that shouldn’t be in close proximity to people. I checked to see if any restaurants near my house that I liked were still opened and could deliver. My other option had been to go to Wendy’s and get a ton of chicken sandwiches. Primati Bros was open and so I ordered three big ass sandwiches. Drove home to eat those and then stretched out before cleaning up. I did end up staying up a good bit so that I could let that digest and so that I could get another meal in before finally going to bed. 


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