Thurs, 11 Oct 18
Upper Assistance
I'm definitely getting stronger with most of what I'm doing, which is always good to see. My shoulder seems to be pretty much back to normal now except for overhead pressing stability, which I will continue to focus on in both my primary upper and assistance upper days. I think my strength increases are contributing to my shoulder working better, but I still need more time/trials/testing to be sure.
I want to add in some extra lower body work like I have for upper body. Ideally I'd like to do this by adding another training day, but I'm not sure if that's the best plan or if I should just combine my upper assistance day into total body assistance.
Half Kneeling Landmine Presses/Neutral Grip Lat Pulldowns
10ea x 25/---
6ea x 45/10x100
2x{10ea x 60/10x135}
10ea x 60/10x145
Landmine presses still worked my hip flexors a lot to help with stability in the half kneeling position, but I felt like they were easier than last week. I'm still sticking with the slow 4 sec negatives on lat pulldowns with an emphasis on scapular depression, but they also are getting easier.
Single Arm Seated Cable Low Rows/DB Shrugs
3x{10ea x 100/30 sec hold + 10x90} - 3 sec pause on shrugs
I'm an idiot and couldn't figure out why the rows were killing me until I realized they weren't supposed to be low rows. I'm maxed out on DB weight for shrugs so I'll switch to the trap bar next week.
American Bar OH Shrugs/Side Lying ER
2x{20x125/12ea x 5}
20x135/12ea x 5 - 5 sec pause on all sets of ER
I need to add a warmup set for OH shrugs if I'm going to continue to increase my weights. I've still got some noticeable strength/endurance differences in ER between left and right, but it's improving.
Incline Reverse Crunches/ABC Hypers
3x{20xBW/10x doubled mini + 10btn}
My former training partner and left coast Latin lover, Nick O'Brien, suggested using band tension for the back extensions to solve the problem I was having getting good resistance in the body position I feel works best for that exercise and it worked like a charm. It's a huge help to have people I can call on when I need ideas or can't figure something out in my training since I currently train alone for my gym sessions. And it's even more helpful when it's someone you have trained with extensively in the past. Thanks Nick!