Mon, 26 Mar 18
Heavy Upper
Today was a solid training day. My strict press is still garbage, but it's getting better. And I will almost certainly have to take an unscheduled deload around the end of April and first week of May due to my last finals of PT school before my going away for my last two clinical affiliations, but I'm not going to program bare bones training for 6 weeks just for the times I do have to modify it. So today I had a solid 2 hour training session and felt good until the end when I did conditioning and then I felt very, very bad.
Axle Strict Press
10x70
6x120
4x150
2x170
1x190
1x215
1x220
3x3x195
I miss the days of turning strict presses into standing incline bench presses, but doing this is a great way to screw my back up for a couple weeks or more. Don't misunderstand, I still end up with some lean back on these before getting my head through for lockout, but only as much a I can without hyperextending my spine in a loaded position. I cringe whenever I see people do that because I've watched that technique screw up the backs and at times end the strongman careers of some great athletes. So I work on keeping my abs as tight as possible and moving hips and shoulders in opposite directions (hips forward and when shoulders go back initially and then hips back when shoulders come forward at lockout) instead of keeping my hips stationary and letting my spine curve backward like a fishing rod when you've set the hook on a monster marlin.
Pendlay Rows
10x45
6x135
2x185
2x6x225
10x195
I added more warmup sets than I would normally do here to address the funk in the outside of my left shoulder blade that I discovered over my deload last week. As a result, no problems noted on rows or pullups today.
Strict Axle DB Press/Pullups
10ea x 50
2x{6ea x 75/8xBW}
10ea x 65/8xBW
Unsurprisingly, single arm strict pressing is much harder after double arm strict pressing (shocking, I know). As for the pullups, I am still using a variety of grips for now (pronated, neutral, supinated, closer, wider, etc).
DB Curls/Head Supported Reverse Flys
3x{10ea x 50/15x5}
Tabata Airbike
I did NOT want to do this, but I sucked it up and muddled my way through. As I've said before, this feels way worse when I do it after training upper body than after training lower body and today was no exception.