Last week went from severely humbling, to pretty cool, which is usually the case when I go from a deadlift to a bench session.
Sunday was a deadlift day, and the crew was working up in a block pull with 4 inch mats.
I f*cking hate block pulls.
I don't hate them because they don't work, mind you, I hate them because I'm worse at these relative to my meet lifts than any other special exercise in the gym. Since I starting having back issues, these have become extraordinarily difficult for me, because they seem to hit me right where I am weakest.
I'll save you the progression, I worked up to 405. Yep, 405. F*ck me.
I'd love to say I was limited by back pain, but I actually felt pretty good. I'm just weak as piss. The biggest issue seems to be a complete inability to drive hard off the mats. After years of trying to protect my back, I have zero speed off the floor, and it's most evident on this lift. So needless to say, I will be doing more of these in the coming months, since they obviously are exposing a major weakness,
Train what is week and you will one day be strong. Not today though.
After the pulls, I did straight leg deadlifts to keep my lower back working. To increase the range of motion, I used 25 lb plates rather than 45's and worked up to 4 sets of 8 with 195.
Hit some abs, and that was all.
Tuesday was a bench day, and by contrast, it went pretty well. After back to back shirt days, I decided to work up raw to a touch-and-go single. I've never had much of a raw bench, so any progress here is a good day.
This was a good day
Warmed up, and went:
95 x 5
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 1
275 x 1
315 x 1
345 x 1
370 x 1
380 x 1
380 is a 5lb pr. Not great, but not bad for a broken down, aging gear whore.
Finished with 10 sets of 10 pulldowns, and 4 sets of 15 on the dip machine.