Friday
Warmup
Bench w/shoulder saver 345x5, 380x3, 425x1
Superset: Band face pulls 5x15 w/Pushdowns 5x15
Inverted rows 5x10

Saturday
Treadmill 1 hr
Rolling and stretching 30 minutes

Sunday
Warmup
SSB squat 335x5, 380x3, 425x3, 295 5x10
*Alt band face pulls and pullaparts between each squat set
Circuit: Seated cable row 5x10 w/back raise 5x10 w/curls 5x10 w/planks 5x30 seconds

The shoulder is coming along slowly, but I was at least able to get some more work in and go a little heavier than last week. When I look back to try and figure out where things went wrong injury wise, I think a lot of it is because I become too routine with my movements. I am a creature of habit. I am also a slave to what I write on paper as far as programming.

Without ever truly realizing it until now, assistance work can give my body a chance to stretch and strengthen in a variety of ways. That said, I have to incorporate a greater variety of movements to make that happen. However, this goes against some ingrained philosophies I have.

For most of my powerlifting career I have been training conjugate style. For those who aren't familiar with that style, it's basically maxing out on some form of the squat, deadlift, and bench press each week. Because it can lack training volume a lot of that is made up with assistance work, the smaller lifts.

Now that I'm using 5/3/1 for my programming, I am doing much more reps/volume with the squat, deadlift, and bench press. Hence, I don't need to kill assistance work. Wendler says this in a lot of his work. I believe I quoted him just recently with "Don't major in the minors." But old habits die hard. If I'm doing something, I feel like I should be killing it, or I am being lazy. So I'd keep track of the assistance work and then I'd feel compelled to constantly dial it up in either weight or reps during future workouts.

Finally, enough is enough. I have been reading up on assistance with Jim's work, that and a call from Rhodes the other day finally resonated today. I didn't have a plan other than my squat numbers today. I even made good use of the time between my dozen or so sets of squats and warmups by doing some band pullaparts or face pulls between each set. I figured they are really good for shoulder health and they wouldn't affect my squat. That's a trick Rhodes told me about, it's not work he even thinks about, he just gets it done between sets. Thank you coach.

When squats were complete I knew some core work should be done, so I chose back raises and planks. I also figured I don't do nearly enough lat work to counter all of the pressing I do, so I added in a row. Lastly, I threw in some curls to fill out my SFW shirt. It made for a good circuit. I didn't even write down the weights I used. If it felt light, I added a little weight or slowed down the reps. When I was done I felt sufficiently worked and didn't feel like I skimped.

So maybe I have finally learned to minor in the minors. Wendler has an article on his forum regarding assistance work. I believe it will be in his upcoming book. It breaks down assistance into push, pull, and core movements. I'm just going to jot them all down in my training journal. I'll chose a bunch for each session and make sure to switch them up session to session and week to week. I'm just going to do them as I feel. I'm not going to keep track in order to make some kind of progression. The true progression comes by increasing my squat, bench, and deadlift numbers.

This might be old news to a lot of you, but I'm dumb. It's fighting my body to go beyond its limits that got me where I am, both good and bad. I guess that's where the expression "Stupid Strong" comes from. Now with injuries, age, and a change in my programming philosophy, I need to adapt to move forward. Now I hope I can just remember this lesson a few weeks from now.