Friday, August 26, 2022

August 25, 2022 – Week 3, Day 3

Axle Clean and Push Presses (clean every rep)
46x2+4 (did 1 clean & 2 presses twice)
76x2
106x2
136x2
Cluster Reps (15 seconds)
166x1+1
196x1+1
226x1+1

Axle Push Presses
144x2
174x2
204x2
234x2
264x4
264x4
264x4

Seated Axle Pin Presses (6” ROM, No Back Support)
136x3
186x3
231x3
271x3
286x3
301x3
316x5 PR+15lbs

Push Ups on Kettlebells (feet elevated 12”)
bw+25x12
bw+25x12
bw+25x12

Dumbbell Cuban Rotations
6’x4
16’sx8
16’sx8
16’sx8

Single Arm Overhead Band Triceps Extensions (5 second eccentric)
lbx10/10
lbx10/10
lbx10/10

Stretching
  
Comments: I wasn’t sure about this workout just from gut feeling. Last week, I felt like I had no power at all in the pressing muscles and lower back. So was still thinking about that, even though first workout of the week went well for pressing. The other thing was that my right knee was feeling sore and it wasn’t just aches. There did seem to be some swelling an inflammation in the muscles too. Perhaps giving me some distraction from the lower back/ribcage/whatever thing. Soft tissue work and plan to try and add some more icing on the off days to get things manageable with last resort being anti-inflammatories. I’ve been here before got back to somewhat normal/tolerable. The knees be good some days and other days not so good. But just kind of have to keep going. So as things stand, this is the “lighter” week for the clean and press but by no means the lighter week in general. Previous week one clean and press and this week clean and press every weight. Last time this was 50/60/70% for cluster triples and this time it was 55/65/75% for cluster doubles. I stuck to the same rest I did last time of 15 seconds or so. I initially forgot what I was doing warming up and realized that I didn’t clean every rep so I recleaned it and did another double. This was feeling less heavy compared to last week on the pull to belt and the cleans. Less weight but that time it felt like 30lbs more was on the bar. No chalk at this point. I think I also altered my initial first pull off the pads here as I had been doing was kind of breaking it off the ground slow and then accelerating below the knee. I’m thinking that doing that while may be for me to think of not pulling my biceps, has me more relaxed and not gripping as hard. First working double with the cluster time I had and issue with my do-rag and then forgot I was to take a break between the reps as I prepared to go again. Other than my right knee being not terribly happy today, these seemed decent. On the last double with the heaviest weight, I hesitated on the clean from belt. I can’t “feel” as good with this thick of material for the grip shirt so I thought from how it felt that I had missed my belt and was under it so I paused a moment to glance down. I saw I had it where I needed it and resumed. I got to start with more intent here to get it to the right position and get that clean and power right. From there, it was axle out of the rack. This had been a low rep set and a rep set at 80% last time this pairing came up. This time it was 3x4 at 85%. I kept the knee sleeves on for these as my knee was feeling quite sore and I’d rather not take away support. These ended up being fairly tough. I warmed up in 30lbs jumps with doubles just so that I got the feeling down. I think I’ve usually done triples when this weight has come up or about and then usually only one set above this kind of reps with RIR. Stuff seemed to feel heavy as far as shoulders and knees but even if I felt like I got stuck, the lockout was fine and had plenty to spare. I think I noticed to myself on a few of those reps where I had to take a moment to collect before going for the next how it was very much feeling the rotation movement in the shoulders of like a face pull or a y raise. It could also be that I’ve felt like I’ve had a very mild scratchy throat from maybe allergies for the past two weeks. I felt like I’ve done these and done these better before. But I know that sometimes that feeling and recollection isn’t true. Got it done, no missed reps. The seated axle pin presses with short ROM again. Something I had looked forward to at the start of this training cycle and now something that leaves me mildly frustrated. I can deal with stuff hurting or aching but not lack of progress. Last week with weights feeling heavy and weird, I missed reps on the last set of these when it was to be RIR. And the plan was to do AMRAP on more weight than last week when I struggled to get 3 reps. Plan was to do 5-10lbs more each working up set but instead of sets of 4, it was sets of 3. So seeing as how I failed at the weights and reps last week, I went with a 5lbs increase. The good news was that the pain part seemed to be not showing up today. So about two weeks was right for most discomfort to go. The not great was that the lightest set felt heavy. Great. But I pushed forward as I tend to do. Like someone too stubborn to see that the door clearly says “pull”. 15lbs jumps and somehow I got things to click. Getting that sweet spot and balancing has been tricky as the weight goes up. I could’ve stopped at four on that last set but I wanted to make up for the missed rep the week before so did five. Lighter stuff after all this axle work. Push ups again. Still using the same setup. I figured that even though I didn’t get 3x12 last time with 20lbs in the back pack, I’d add 5lbs just because. RPE was certainly higher near the end but I felt like I should push these a little more as I got one week left before they are dropped and this is the closest I got to incline bench that is comfortable. Cuban rotations were next. Same sets but decreased reps. Advised to go up in weight. With these small muscle exercises that have the shoulder capsule and most of it comes from the leverages of my arms providing the difficulty with resistance, I thought it was best to do a lighter set to warm things up a little before going with added weight. As that does seem to benefit me sometimes on these kind of exercises. Last bit of the workout was the long eccentric triceps with bands. No external rotation pairing this week. Added a third set on these with rep range 10-15. I kind of already knew that with increasing the tension and just knowing how the fatigue hits me on these that I’d be doing 3x10 to try and make it through. Triceps (especially the right one) get quite twitchy by the end and kind of spasm afterwards when I’m stretching (and sometimes lingers into the following day). It was good call doing the lower end this time around. Put stuff away and cooked up dinner. Stretched and iced my right knee. Going to have to keep an eye on that and try to get things to calm down.


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