I've had some fun training without a real goal in mind for the past few weeks, but it's time to start to buckle down and get back to the meet prep grind. I haven't taken a week off since after Boss of Bosses back in August, so I'm going to take the next week or two to just mess around, without any powerlifting, and then start fresh in the new year. But still check out the highlights from the past week!
Saturday: ME Lower, Back & Biceps
Great session today. Hit a huge yoke bar PR, and then moved on to try an equally big deficit DL PR. Missed at the knees, but came back and hit a nice backoff set. Practiced some posing today, too!
Yoke Bar squat
515x1
555x1
Add Wraps
635x1
695x1 (40 pound PR)
Deficit deadlift
715x1 (10 pound PR)
740xmiss
705x3 (PR)
Lat pulldown
Single-arm lat pulldown
Hammer curl
Concentration curl
Reverse curl
Tuesday: ME Upper, Chest & Triceps
Bench exercises were a bit sloppy today, but I got the work done. My ability to activate my chest on pressing exercises has improved a whole lot, so I’m excited to see what happens when I can apply that to my competition bench.
Floor press
315x3
355x1
370x1 (PR)
Incline bench press
275x5
290x5
300x5 (PR)
Machine flat press
Hammer Strength wide iso bench press
Cable crossover
Hammer Strength dip
Overhead pulley extension
Wednesday: Competition Lower, Quads
Fantastic session on the beltless squats today. Shouldn’t have pushed quite so hard, but I needed the challenge and it worked out. Ultra-high rep bodybuilding work today: about 600 total reps on those exercises!
Competition squat
625x1
670x1 (PR)
Add belt
565x5
Leg extension
Single-leg goblet squat superset with hamstring curl
Dumbbell squat
Wall sit
Leg extension (yes, again)
Friday: Competition Upper, Shoulders
Well, pushed a bit too hard today too, but I don’t think the very light work is helping on my bench. I have a hard time keeping a J-shaped bar path on heavy reps, and on anything under about 80% I don’t need to keep that path to make the rep, so 80-90% seems to be my sweet spot.
Competition bench
315x5
365x1
375x1
390x1
390x1
390x1
350x3
Incline dumbbell press
Reverse pec flye
Seated row for rear delts
And that's it. But even though I'm taking a little break to reset, I'll still be keeping the log updated. Had a killer squat session with Da'Savage Hall and Rusty Coffman this weekend, so look for a writeup of that soon!