Friday, September 9, 2022

September 8, 2022 – Week 5, Day 3

Axle Clean and Push Presses
46x5
76x3
106x2
136x1
166x1
196x1
226x1
226x1
226x1
226x1

Axle Push Presses
136x2
186x2
226x1
256x1
286x3
265x3
265x3

Reverse Band Seated Axle Pin Presses (8” ROM, 55lbs deloaded bottom, 0lbs top)
316x2
366x2
406x2
426x4
426x4

Paused Banded Face Pulls w/Fat Gripz Extremes (low anchor point, 1 second)
mmb’sx12
mmb’sx12
mmb’sx12

Single Arm Overhead Band Triceps Extensions (5 second eccentric)
lbx15/15
lbx12/12 
lbx10/10

Stretching
  
Comments: Just feeling like no brakes and no breaks when it comes to work this week. Not enough hours in the day to decompress from it and get all the things afterwards done. Or enough time to get everything I need to get done. Didn’t help that the system stopped working 1hr before quitting time so that meant work for tomorrow morning to be done before starting on the new day’s work. Soft tissue work had not been a much of a thing on Wednesday but I got to eat good bit of burritos. This was the lighter week for the clean and press. Usually this is clean every rep but this time the planned working sets were just singles so warming up I did just one clean to get the shoulders and stuff warm since I’d be doing a lot more of that later in the session. So as things were put down for today, I was to work up to 75% for 4 singles with 60-90 seconds rest. Indication was that this rest as opposed to EMOM as wanted these to be crisp and technically good as I can make them and not introduce any slop. I felt that depending on how warming up felt, I could probably do this EMOM style and still have things be good. Right shoulder was feeling a little achy warming up but things were moving well. So with the time for the working weight, I decided to go with the EMOM style of sets and rest. Felt like it was moving well to me. Left arm was feeling a little tension (under hand) but not out of the ordinary. Learning to accept and believe that I got the bar at the right spot despite the material being harder to tactilely locate at the start of the flip motion on my stomach. This was good and all but I still feel like 225lbs should feel even lighter than it did. That I should be doing more weight on overhead to be competitive. I’m doing two push press sessions a week so hopefully the fruits of the labor will be more apparent when the deload and peak start. From there, it was axle out of the rack. Plan for this was to work up in doubles and/or singles to a top triple (1-2RIR) and then take a little off of that for 2x3. Suggested had been 278lbs. I feel like I need to be comfortably repping 300lbs or more to be improving. I know that’s not how this works with how long I’ve been at this. Rarely is progress sudden and exorbitant on the staples. Fear of not being as strong as I have been. Stuff seeming to feel heavy. Maybe not as powerful an effort. Maybe I’m just feeling worn from week on week on with some stuff. Tell myself this is the building phase. I felt I had to do more than 278lbs but had to play it safe as my fear was going too heavy and having it be something I struggle on or worse, missing reps on something that was to have reps in the tank. Been noticing that I’m not exactly comfortable with going right into the next rep all the time, like a back and forward balance issue and I seem to have to let things settle a good bit rather than using the nervous energy to go. Could also be from how I tend to push my hips forward to get under the weight. But I don’t want to get bogged down in technique issues as I feel that derailed some things last time a max axle was prepped from my own doing. Worked up with bigger jumps for the doubles and then went to 30lbs jumps for singles. Aim being essentially the opening weight for the triple. I need to get better at the lower body drive and comfortability with getting under the weight. The lockout work and increased triceps stuff is helping with being able to get under weights. Not sure what I did but the knuckles of the right hand for the middle and ring finger got tight and ached after this top set. Not going to stop me on anything but annoying. Even getting the top set, still nervous about the down sets as this weight or abouts had felt tough for several sets of 4 last time. Even though I made about this weight with one clean move quite well last week. It is perhaps that I don’t have the same tenacity for the lower weight after the big weight or maybe I put a little more into that top set and then have my normal levels on these other sets. Just being reflective. So from there was more lockout work. This had been quite interesting last time so there were some changes made. One was to increase the ROM by 2”. See if that reduced the weight enough to be more in line with carryover. I had thought this would be the step taken. The increased ROM is actually good I think for the lockout work being done. So in order for things to not be so much band assistance with that increase in distance, I took off some of the band as I knew with them doubled that even that small an increase would be more than nothing. Ended up being 55lbs after removing the micro bands with the added ROM. I felt that I had a better idea of what I could do with the back support and band assistance compared to last time. So less sets and bigger jumps in weight. Plan was to do 2x4 with 2RIR and longer rests. I was thinking that 406-446lbs would be where I was. 406lbs felt too easy to stop there but 446lbs I gave an attempt and the effort to get it off the pins was obviously going to be too much (be a single and not a set of 4) so I went with 426lbs. That first rep of each set is a doozy and then the other reps are a good bit better feeling. Second set was a lot tougher than the first. I had to work for that one. The next part of the workout was up to me in a way. I was advised to do 3x10-12 of a face pull variation that I felt helped with axle clean and press. So usually that had been a band face pull with the anchor point low. Suggestion to do pauses. I felt that would be something but that it doesn’t quite get it. Yes, the motion is the same but not how I’m gripping things. So I thought of adding Fat Gripz to the band and gripping them without my thumbs like I do when I have the axle. Took a bit of troubleshooting to get the feel right and I may need to do more tweaking to get it right. It was something different from the Cuban rotations. Easier feeling then them as far as the joints but tougher than a regular face pull. Eccentric single arm triceps with bands to round out the evening. Three sets again with plan being 10-15 reps still. I had tried to do 3x12 last time but I fell short of that. This time, I figured I’d just aim for the most reps I could and not try and do 3x12 with holding back early on to hope I had endurance for later. Not save anything for the swim back to shore. This seemed to work as got an extra 3 reps on the first set and matched the sets from last week on the other sets. Put stuff away and cooked up dinner before stretching. Made sure to ice the knees before bed.


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