July 27, 2023 – Week 5, Day 3

Alternating Dumbbell Bench Presses/Bird Dog Dumbbell Rows (2 second holds)
40’sx6/6 – 40x6/6
70’sx3/3 – 80x3/3
97’sx7/7 – 122x6/6
97’sx6/6 – 122x6/6
97’sx10/10 – 122x8/8

Seated Log Pin Presses (no back support)
87x2
117x2
147x2
177x2
157x2
157x2
157x2
157x2
157x2

Iso Seated Log Pin Presses (7 seconds)/Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Band Y Raises to Hold (10 seconds)
87x3/32’sx10/mb’sx10
87x3/32’sx10/mb’sx10

Overhead Band Triceps Extensions
mbx25
mbx25

Stretching
 
Comments: Just going to be hot and humid for a bit to end out July I guess. Feeling a bit of yesterday and  I was starting to think maybe that this workout might be tougher because I had bumped up the weights last time. Fans on for this session. I didn’t try to move things along that much as I knew that it would be taking a bit for setup of certain things. Starting off with alternating dumbbell bench presses supersetted with bird dog rows. Less sets but to be more weight. Last time doing this pairing. Plan was to do 2x6 and then max reps leaving 2-3RIR on the last set. Considering how well 90’s had felt on the press, I wasn’t sure what I could really load up with the weights I had and still have the weight for the row. Working up was easy enough. I made bigger jump with the rows since I knew what I was actually going to be lifting and not misload by 20lbs. I actually had to double check the weight after Drew was mentioning it as being impressive and more than he had done for the exercise. The most I could load up the dumbbells and still have the same weight for the row (no sense going heavier) was 97lbs. Felt a little unwieldy the first set. I definitely miscounted and did an extra rep. The damaged 2.5lbs plate came apart and I had to use my rest to fix it with athletic tape for the second set. Row was challenging but not quite as daunting as last week getting it started. As I knew it could be done and wasn’t thinking it was only 102lbs. Second set the pressing felt really easy. I was worried I miscounted that set. Rows felt about the same here. Last set was max reps but leaving 2-3RIR. I was not expecting to be doing double digits on the pressing. Left side was feeling a lot stronger compared to right side. It was more the right side that was struggling/slowing down that stopped the set. Left side felt like it could do a lot more. Reviewing video, it does seem like there are some differences in how each side carries the weight. Such as flexibility of joints and rigidity. Rowing was challenging but got through it. Took a bit to tear things down inside but I needed to to get ready for other stuff but also to recover a bit in this heat. Left shoulder was feeling a bit achy from the last bit of effort from this first part of the workout. But I knew it would be ok for the rest of the workout and would feel better with some food and sleep. And time. I had setup some things outside partially because it wasn’t business as usual. I was to do some log pressing first. Seated pressing off of pins for doubles. Low RPE (4-5). I think my hope here was that stuff was going well and that I’d be using no less than about 147lbs for this. This was more to see where I was and for building forward. It sounds like this will be the secondary day for pressing with the log focus. I was trying to figure it out with these workouts where the main pressing would be as sometimes it has been the beginning of the week and other times the middle. I felt for this lower effort that I should use no support gear at the moment and potentially reset each rep on the rack and roll it up to mimic the catch of racking the log from a successful clean. I was debating between 20-30lbs jumps. I decided to go with 30lbs jumps so that I could potentially do the log plus a pair of 45’s. I was just feeling so-so and was feeling like I’d do the 5x2 with 147lbs but that flew up. So I was fully prepared to do 177lbs for these 60-75 second rest sets. Bu it didn’t feel like it should here. Power off the chest was great that first rep but then it got all funky on me passing the point where I’ve been doing these iso presses at and balance wasn’t great and locking out wasn’t feeling that crisp. The second rep was even worse. Yes, I could’ve kept going but it wouldn’t have been the crisp reps at the lower end of effort to do so. I was a bit annoyed that it felt like the disconnect between the 147lbs and 177lbs was so vast. But it does seem like there needs to be work done to get into log pressing shape besides just some iso voodoo stuff and strange mobility emphasis pressing. Dropped the weight down 20lbs and essentially went about doing these as EMOM really. Maybe shorter than that rest as it was like 40 seconds between sets. I’m still not comfortable/confident with the pressing abilities after the past few contests. Not starting at zero at least. The triplet pairing outside was next. Dropped down to just two sets this time. Log iso work, dumbbells and bands. Some modifications, mostly for the log. Advised to lower the pin height another notch so it would be 2” lower. Also having the effort time be increased from 5ct to 7ct if I wanted to (I did). As far as the other parts, the RPE was increased a good bit. Enough that I felt I had to increase things a bit more than I was (or wasn’t) and this was especially the case since one less set to build fatigue over. The log stuff at least felt comfortable again. I guess it should with how these have been. Though the wasps were making me a little anxious. Increased the dumbbells for the laterals up to a nice 32lbs. I was feeling good that first set, like I could do the 40lbs but I knew there was a steep drop off from this triset with how each thing hit the shoulders. Namely the pair of the laterals followed by the band y raises into hold. I think if no hold these wouldn’t be that bad. I’ve kept those the same because adding weight to the laterals and shortening rest has been enough to keep the difficulty up. But wouldn’t cut it this time so I had to increase the bands. And lord did increasing bands to the next band thickness was a trip. I was aware of how tough this kind of thing can be from past holds with bands and bumping up the tension for shoulders so that was thankfully not an issue. I was kind of looking forward to how this would feel with my achy shoulder. This was a lot of tension to hold the position. As expected, the second go through was tougher for the dumbbell and band portion (log felt about the same). Last thing was triceps. Same as it was for last week. Again, trying to make things tougher sticking with the mini band for tension and the rep range and effort. Stepping forward more, taking shorter rest. I actually hadn’t intended to take as short of rest as I did this time as I thought what I was doing would take more time (putting away some weights). I was definitely feeling fatigue in the triceps by the end. Put stuff away before cooking dinner and stretching.