December 16, 2022 – Week 8, Day 3

Swiss Bar Incline Bench Presses
45x10
75x5
105x5
135x3
165x3
195x6
210x6
225x5
203x6

Dead Stop One Arm Dumbbell Rows (knee on bench)
64x5/5
89x5/5
116x5/5
144x10/10
156x10/10
166x10/10

Dumbbell Floor Presses w/ bands (2 second eccentrics)
40’s+lbx20
40’s+abx20
40’s+abx20
40’s+abx20

Band Y Raises to Overhead Presses (3 second holds)
µb’sx11 (miscounted)
µb’sx10
µb’sx10

Dumbbell Zottman Curls (5 second eccentrics)
30’sx10
30’sx10
30’sx10

Stretching
 
Comments: Thursday was odd. First time this season with potential chance of snow but I knew it wouldn’t materialize beyond ice/sleet and melt. It has felt like the temperatures have just shifted ahead too much from where they were when I was younger to be consistent with expectations now. That’s not to say that places further north didn’t get the expected snow. It just meant that it was way too slick outside to risk going for a walk so I didn’t. Needed to catch up on work anyways. Also had dentist and that was odd in that I got a glowing review of my chompers from the visiting dentist covering for the usual dentist. I was leery as last time someone other than the usual was there, they tried to schedule me for 3 “exploratory” drillings in my teeth. This guy was way too jovial. Said I had the best set of teeth he’s seen all week. Blush. Anyways, Friday comes and still got a stiff neck. It is getting better each day, surely but slowly, so can’t be too miffed about that. Only taking Aleve at this point before bed just to make sure that I don’t have my neck too sore and prevent me from sleeping to recover. Less things the day before so was able to do soft tissue work. But I do need to keep in mind that as I get older, recovery is slower. I still got contact bruises from Monday with the circus dumbbell. Swiss bar incline bench again. So these had been great leading up to last week when removing tempo and adding weight reminded me why I find pushing weight on incline pressing is frustrating. Because it is. It feels disjointed in where one set of things stops and the other picks up. I generally don’t have this issue with log but definitely so on other variations it would seem. Or this is just what is the case as I get older. I’m definitely self conscious of what I feel is a weakness in my strongman game in overhead. It was my lowest placing thing at Nationals and had been a reason I didn’t place higher during the year. Or in the past really in most cases. Thinking that with how these were feeling that this was coming back to good vibes. But last week these were harder than I would’ve liked. I really would’ve liked these to be 225lbs for the planned reps and sets last week but it wasn’t to be. 195lbs felt a ton heavier. Anyways, the plan for this week was 3x6 and aim to have that last set be 2-3RIR, a linear periodization. My plan was to do 195lbs and do jumps based off how it felt. If feeling amazing 15lbs jumps but more realistically 5lbs – 10lbs jumps. Again, these are tricky as warming up it feels great. I was really tempted to do 225lbs with how 165lbs felt but then I went to do 195lbs for a single (against what was written as supposed to do triples) and the unrack felt damn heavy so put it back and went back to what I was thinking initially. 195lbs was decent. Felt smoother I feel compared to last week first set. I was also dealing with the left side being tight and my right wrist aching from the thick grip shrug work. I was going to do 10lbs jumps but then that voice in my head kept egging me on. Do more, you need to be way stronger. So I added 15lbs instead. This was still in the realm of acceptable for this. But as I seem to always do with pressing (incline, axle, benching) I went too much. I had no business doing 225lbs but I had told myself if I believed it I could do it. I got 5 reps and just couldn’t get through the sticking point on the 6th rep and had to bail. Which wasn’t fun as I didn’t have the pins really set high enough to be there to spot. I didn’t want to end it there on a bad note so I reset everything and did a set of 6 with the weight somewhat between the top successful weight and the first set. That seemed fine. If I had stuck to 10lbs jumps, this wouldn’t have been a thing. I keep doing this with pressing. I get frustrated and feel I’m not where I need to be and I find it intolerable. I did this with incline in prep for Battle at the Bridge and that didn’t turn out well for me. Angry that I did this again with missing a rep. I need to be better. Better at managing these thoughts as well as being better. Being frustrated with how things are shaping up as far as competitions for next year and just how I’m feeling like I’m at a deficit to my competition isn’t helping matters here. And that the workouts will not be getting easier. Moving on. Into the garage. One arm rows again. Change up in variation. The style of using a bench to prop up the knee. I guess I should be differentiating these variations better.  Dead stop on the floor each rep. Indication was to build and then potentially swap in arm over arm (if Arnold but seeming less likely every day). Plan being 3x10 at RPE 7. I wasn’t sure how these would feel and I was feeling a bit miffed with pressing. I did more reps than usually do working up just to see how fatigue felt and I feel that I lowballed things here as my first set was way too easy still. I had thought about doing the handle plus 3 sets of 25’s but I was worried it would be too much after doing a top set with about that weight on the other variation last week. But turns out that was probably what I should’ve done. The alleviated some of the sting of how disappointed I was in the swiss bar pressing (again, a training lift and not even an event). I will need to get a bit creative to fit more weight on here securely going forward. Then the floor pressing with dumbbells again. But not quite. Drew decided to have me do these with less weight and using bands to make up the difference with the hope these would be more challenging but easier to get into position. I was thinking that it would be harder just with the bands restricting movement but I guess the weight was light enough that it worked out. I had done the first set with a light band around my back as I thought it would be challenging enough. The band shifted as I did the first rep and laid down so it was less than expected. Still, I did 20 reps just to see how fatigue built and I still decided it wasn’t enough to meet the criteria of 3x15-20 with 3RIR. So I increased the band tension and just treated that first set as an extended warm up. Lockout gets tricky on these with the fatigue building. And it is not just the triceps but my anterior deltoids that get fried as well. I miscounted the first hard set and stopped when I realized I was going for a 21st rep. I counted right the other two sets. I will need to increase the dumbbells slightly for next time but this band tension is good. Y raises into press outside. Same as last week. This week I was feeling a lot more fatigue. Could be from having my neck tight and having to do a lot of soft tissue work to get things to feel comfortable or that the pressing from today and this week cumulatively was harder. It also didn’t help that I miscounted that first set. These also perhaps were feeling tougher in that I was doing the form that felt tougher right from the start rather than discovering it halfway through the second set. By this point, pretty much everything spanning from fingertip to fingertip and from neck to below shoulder blades front and back were fatigued. And I still had the zottman’s with the added eccentrics for 3x10. Indication was another week of these and either dropping them for something else or reduction in volume to maintain for elbow health. I decided to go up 2lbs more. Negligible difference in weight but thinking that I could push these a little more and still try and improve. I guess the name of the game for me. Nickel and dime increases. Fatigue was high and it was definitely challenging keeping to these rest periods. Last time, it was the last set that I was gassed on after solid first and somewhat solid second set. Looking to repeat that it would seem. This time, it wasn’t until the last two reps of that set that I was having trouble controlling the eccentric. But it was both sides this time vs just the right. Seems to be tied to shoulder fatigue as well. Put stuff away and ate Indian food for dinner before stretching. No icing as taking Aleve. Took a bit to get myself to want to sleep. Nervous for the workout tomorrow because of how tough this stuff felt last week.