Thursday, April 7, 2022

April 7, 2022 – Week 4, Day 3

Axle Push Presses (beltless)
36x3
66x3
96x3
126x3
156x2
186x2
216x2
246x1
276x5
248x5
248x5
248x5

Paused Axle Incline Bench Presses (2 second pauses)
26x3
56x3
86x3
116x3
146x3
176x3
206x5
206x5
206x5
206x5

Birddog Dumbbell Rows
40x6/6
80x12/12
80x12/12
80x12/12

Dumbbell External Rotations on Incline Bench (2 second pauses, 3 parts)
10’sx4
16’sx8
16’sx8
16’sx8

Band Lateral Raises/Band Triceps Extensions (facing away, rack)
mb’s+µb’sx25/ab+mmbx25
mb’s+µb’sx25/ab+mmbx25
mb’s+µb’sx21/ab+mmbx25

Stretching
  
Comments:  Today was kind of the first real big overhead session. Other sessions this cycle have been set percents. Was feeling a little bit of something Wednesday afternoon. Like the air was feeling stuffy in the house. Like allergies or super weak cold. Seemed fine start of the day today. Realized weather was going to be rainy all day so I had to do a judgement call on training time. I went with late morning training as I had a mandatory training for work immediately after lunch for several hours and I figured that I’d probably be really annoyed by that and I’d be really frustrated if the rain was a downpour at that point so that I was staying up later. I already had decided that once the overhead work was done, I’d go into the garage. I feel I made the best choice here with training time as after I finished it started raining really hard and it rained really hard like an hour after my shift ended so I’d have had to wait until like 6:15PM to even start training. So axle to start things off. Still beltless at this point. But as mentioned, a change in that it wasn’t percentage based. Work up to smooth 5 rep top set (2RIR) and then take off 10% for 3x5. Notes indicated that this rep range is kind of the one where people tend to rush things. Become cowards of fatigue. No rebound reps. Treat this like five singles with short rests if necessary to have each rep feel powerful. It was wet and despite it saying “no precipitation” there was quite a bit of it. But not enough that it would keep me from training safely. I did squeegee the water off the patio to start. Plan was same warm-ups as last two sessions but keep 30lbs all the way up. I forgot I was to stop doing triples early and so I moved up the reps so that I was doing a double with 216lbs instead of a single like I have been doing. I believed I could do this weight for these reps with these conditions. But it a good bit of weight with these conditions. So I get anxious and excited. That first rep my lockout didn’t feel as powerful as it should. The next two reps it did. My lower body drive and shoulders felt good but my lockout was feeling it today. I got my reps but I didn’t feel confident that I had 2RIR. I feel 1RIR was a safe bet with how my lockouts were. The weight definitely felt lighter dropping off 28lbs but those reps were pretty tough. Legs were feeling fatigue as well as the triceps. I was getting tired and breathing heavy. But I got them done. The stuffiness was coming back around this time. I still feel on track for a big axle lift with how things are going out of the rack. Will have to see how the cleans and such go since I’ve not done an axle clean heavier than 96lbs I think in over a year and a half maybe. I also have to remember that these have been without any support gear besides my wrist wraps. So had to move all the stuff into the little sun room to get it out of the rain and dry some stuff off before continuing in the garage for the rest of the session. Axle incline again. But no chaos weight. And longer pauses. What was listed was 5lbs more than the total weight from last time for 4x5 with 2 second pauses on the chest (or where ever felt comfortable). I wanted to just deal with 30lbs jumps here so I went 5lbs heavier. I figured that even with the longer pauses, the removal of the chaos bands should make things feel like I have 3RIR on these. The bar path still feels alien to me but I’m getting better. I think having it be more stable helped me at least after the initial set. First set had me a little concerned that this was too much. Familiar feeling of “dead zones” in the movement that I’ve had in the past with incline pressing with barbell and axle to a lesser extent. I figured it out for the remaining sets but didn’t fully commit I think to the tactic to make these work for me until the last two sets. I have a bad habit of relaxing too much on paused exercises but I’ve gone better with correcting that on most things. I was not focusing on that with these as I was kind of just letting it sink into my chest. What needed to be done was have it just touch my chest and keep tension the entire time and that made a world of difference on these as the last set felt the easiest. At this point the stuffiness was becoming annoying and I took some Dayquil to clear my head a little. Birddog rows again. Listed to do 80x3x10-12 with 3RIR. I knew that was going to be just 3x12 after last week. Those extra reps each set did add up to be a bit more fatiguing than I expected. Not so much for the usual culprits (biceps and forearms) but for the upper back, neck areas. These still seemed to be fine. External rotations with the dumbbells after that. 3x8 again. I figured for this time around that I should try a warm up set rather than jumping right in because even though light weight, the torque from the leverages is decent. This did seem to help as no issues on either the warm up weight or the working weight as far as any discomfort in the shoulders. Last was superset pairing of band laterals and band triceps. Now I thought I had the same bands as last time but I guess not. I mean, I did for the laterals and reps were much improved. I had more tension on the triceps then I did last week and somehow got 3x25 (goal being 3x15-25 with 3-5RIR so 3x25 for both). Put stuff away and waited until end of the work day to stretch out, eat and ice knees.


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