September 6, 2021 – Week 8, Day 1

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (Dumbbell with Fat Gripz Extreme)
35x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2
65x2/2

Seated Axle Shoulder Presses (3 seconds negatives)
27x5
60x5
90x3
120x3
150x3
180x3
210x4
195x5
165x8
165x8

Feet Elevated Pull-ups (Rings)
bwx10
bwx10
bwx10
bwx10

Paused Behind the Neck Strict Presses (3 seconds holds)/Paused Seated Band Face Pulls (2 seconds holds)
45x12/mmbx12
45x12/mmbx12
45x12/mmbx12

Push Ups on Kettlebells (5 seconds eccentrics)
bwx13
bwx11
bwx10

Defranco Band Pull-aparts 
mbx12
mbx12
mbx12

Single Arm Band Triceps Pressdowns
lbx70(42/19/9)/70(42/19/9)

Stretching

Comments: Noticing that even though cleared to return to lifting, not everything is back to normal. Somethings feel slightly off. Maybe that is the new normal. Just keep going. I am noticing that right now, there is some additional fatigue in the left arm when it comes to flexion that I’ll need to be mindful of if that persists for recovery work purposes. Left shoulder still feels off and again, no idea what initially caused it. Just seems like 3 weeks ago that it decided to get all achy and screwy on me. I’ve had this happen before and honestly, I’m not sure what made it happen and made it go away that time either. Just eventually stopped mattering. Knees were pretty stiff Monday but seemed ok today. Still working on decisions for things after this show (and if I’m doing open or pro) and hopefully I’ll have that sorted out by no later than the end of next week. I had initially set that for this week but I feel that I need more than one week of “normal” training under me to ascertain where I am and how I’ll progress. Off work for holiday so I decided to train a little earlier in the day so that I could hopefully get stuff done and have a bit more relaxed evening. Workouts back to working both arms together this week. No mobility or stretching programmed so right into training. Circus dumbbell to start things off. Every press day. Got to get that neural link with this strong with how dependent it is on that crisp movement. And doesn’t help that I put myself in a situation where I’ve not been able to push this. So today was the easy day. Weight finally increasing to the point that I could use 25’s to get it closer to the diameter of the contest and my circus dumbbell. Made for an awkward dumbbell. Wrist wrap for the injured side still. 7x2 this time. Definitely harder to do these all in one set than 50lbs. I meant to do that but I miscounted and had to come back to do the last set after reviewing the video. Knees took a few movements to wake up. Right side felt like it had more power but I also noticed that the increased diameter of the “bells” had me not in as tight a position as I was with the smaller dumbbell. That was something I figured might be an issue. The left side definitely seemed to be better for the positioning but felt slower to get there and my wrist not at the right angle. I think part of that is that the wrist wrap is limiting some mobility depending on where I wrap it and when I have it wrapped like I usually do, there is pressure on the left side of that wrist that causes me to hesitate slightly. So will have to see when get back to my actual circus dumbbell I think to see where I’m at. Thankfully only saw like one mosquito outside putting the dumbbell away. Inside for training in the garage. It was cooler today so I didn’t have the fans going initially but then I did as I started to feel warm. I was noticing at the end of the workout I wasn’t sweating to death. Seated axle pressing. Back support and 3 second negatives starting from the top. Always wanted to top start overhead work but just never really able to do it at the gym with what I had available. Also figured this would be an exercise to test out the elbow sleeves and see how my rack position looked. Advised to warm-up in 5’s or 3’s and then do a set of 6-8 with 1-2RIR. I messed up here. Overshot. I felt good on 180lbs but I should’ve not gone for 30lbs more. 20lbs at the most. Got stuck hard at lockout going for fifth and ended up shoving the axle off my shoulders onto the garage floor. Annoyed with that. Reset with 15lbs taken off but I think that I put too much into that previous set as I stalled going for that sixth rep on that set and had to drop that one too. Ugh. So much for keeping RIRs on this. I treated the down sets as if 195lbs was my top weight and cut 15% off for 2x8. Accentuated eccentrics really seem to take it out of me on overhead pressing I’m noticing. That first set felt like I was close to missing that last rep. I’d been furious if that had happened again. Seemed to get it together for the last set as that went much smoother. Both frustrated with where I’m at but know that there is a ton of room for improvement on this exercise. So maybe it evens out. I think the best thing was that this didn’t irritate my shoulders or wrist any further. Next up was back work. Modified pull-ups that reminded me of the rack chins I was doing back when I started doing garage gym training in 2020. But this was a little different I feel. Plan was 4x8-10 with 2-3RIR, getting a stretch at the bottom and brief pause at contraction. Suggested with using swiss bar for neutral grip but don’t have that so I used the rings to do that. Took a little bit to feel right. I feel like that second and fourth set were the best feeling for me. Wasn’t entirely certain if I was to just do bodyweight for all sets this week or to add weight as needed. Probably best I stuck with bodyweight to get used to things first. After that was a super set of the btn presses but now paired with band face pulls. Both having pauses and for 12 reps. Light stuff that gets tough quickly. The presses were different from before in that pause was shorter with more reps but the focus of the press pause was different. It had been before “open chest” as the cue whereas this time it was “open elbows”. That focus does change where the stress is. For the face pulls, these were a bit different being done seated. As this kind of pairing has been, gets a good shoulder pump. Left shoulder does seem to get more fatigued and with whatever is going on with it, feels like it is behind. Push up variation after that. Just bodyweight but working on that long eccentric. These were to be done on blocks for increased ROM and to pause in the stretch. I was also advised I could use dumbbells if that was easier on the wrist. I was going to use the bumper plates with the 10’s for these but I figured that it would work better with my tall 15lbs kettlebells if they stayed balanced and held up my weight. I could angle them and with how they taper, I wouldn’t have my chest hitting anything early or having it “rest” on anything in the bottom. So that worked great. These push up variations seem to be rough but my shoulders and chest seem to be thankful with the tension work. I could keep going despite shoulders (left one) feeling rough. Didn’t really keep track of the reps during the set and came back to review video to get that. Winding down with some bands. New one for me with Defranco band pull-aparts. Been a while since I heard that name. In either case, this was a variation of the pull-apart that seemed to hit all the parts of the shoulder with retraction. I think what I ended up doing was slightly different as it appears you do a raise to get into position and stay there for his version whereas what I was instructed to do had brief holds and did raises every rep. I was initially worried I’d have to use a micro band if this bothered my shoulders and wrist. Thankfully it didn’t after I got my positioning right. I actually like it how it felt haha. Last item for the evening was band triceps. A bit of change up here with it being as many sets as it took to get 70 reps each arm. I decided to use a light band and started with my left arm. I was happy to find I could do this tension without discomfort in my wrist (I was testing without the wrist wrap). Then baton pass to the other arm to match. I’m not sure if the sides are evening out or what but the matching reps seemed not so easy. Which is good. The right had used to be the side that fatigued faster. It could also be that that side is now a bit better coordinated and can do the reps faster, thus fatigue faster. Finished it up and then cleaned up the garage before heading over to Chipotle to use up a birthday gift card. Figures they were out of veggies when I went haha. Stretched and tried to ice the left shoulder as best as I can. Just documenting things as they go.