~I moved my platform, bar and weights to the garage for the day.
Overhead Press
135×3
Power cleaned the weight from the floor to start. My press has done nothing and actually feels weaker. Sucks. It is a manly lift.
Power Clean
135×3
155×2 x2
165×2 x3
175×2 x2
Feeling pretty good with the cleans up to here. Catching was a bit off causing extra pressure on my wrists.
Overhead Push Press
175×0F x2
I was really hoping to hit this but I really felt weak. I cleaned it just once and took 2 failed attempts to push press it. fml…
Power Clean
185×1 x5
190×0F x2
185 felt like I had more room to go up but 5 more pounds was the breaking point. I did end up doing 2 nice high pulls with the 190 though.
Overhead Press
135×3 x2
Felt a bit stronger this time but I really need to work this lift more.
Overhead Push Press
135×5x2
Second set felt easier and was probably due to better form.
Dead Lift
315×15 Straps
One item off my list. I was hoping for more reps, 20 actually but am happy with 15. I only let my last re-sets get to about 3 seconds. This hit the working muscles HARD. Would not mind trying this again later.
~Lifted for 1hr exact today. I really could/should have picked up the pace a bit.
~Quality of sleep has really been down and is taking a bit of a toll, not that the heat and humidity helps any.
Bench Press paused
145×5
175×4
205×3 x2
225×2 x3
Felt great! Looking forward to some TnG work.
Squat
135×5
185×5
225×4
245×3 x2
265×2 x5
Feeling awesome enough I had to hold myself back. So tempted to go for it today. Next week should be fun.
light Kroc Rows
105×20/20 x2
Left grip feels a lot weaker than it should. Perhaps I should do some heavy side bends with a hold at the end to help that… I can’t really do krocs with too much regularity if I like my elbows and shoulders to be relatively pain free.
~Did the gym in a total of 55minutes, only around 43of them lifting minutes. The rest was setting up and breaking down the gym.
~At some point in the next 3 weeks I want to hit something close to 95-100%% on my lifts. I am in conflict whether I should do it right away or after I do some fun bangin and iron slangin. Probably, since I don’t have an idea yet, will play it by ear 😉
~Happy 4th to my Yank pals down south in Canada’s basement and I hope all my hoser pals had a great Canada Day weekend. Went in for a quick fast lighter day. One of a few planned…I will lay out some of my thoughts/plans at the end.
Band Face Pulls
#3×10 x18
I started the day with face pulls and did a set between EVERYTHING I did today. 18 sets is IF I counted them up right.
Ab Wheel from knees
BWx10 x3
I spread the sets out. One for a warm up, one between the squats and benching, and a final set at the end.
Squatting felt strong and my muscles felt a tad tight. The front squats felt great so I might look into doing them once in a while. Kept them to a minimum though since they don’t seem to always agree with my knees. 265 was coming up pretty fast. The way it felt it seemed like some speed work might not be a bad idea.
Bench Press paused
135×5
165×4
200×3 x2
220×2 x3
Set up was lacking base to start but that quickly came around. Sweating like crazy and the chalk was of little help. Felt strong.
~Did the gym in a total of 50minutes, only around 37 of them lifting minutes. The rest was setting up and breaking down the gym.
~The general idea is to take a few light days. These light days will be an upper and lower body lift and perhaps a bit of fluff super set in…and by fluff I mean abs and perhaps back work. After that I will just be hitting the gym without a daily plan. I do however have a list of lifting I would like to get finished in the next 3-4 weeks or by the end of the month. I will be lifting more frequently but shorter sessions. I will be doing some sort of speed work, be it just speed or using bands. Or both. It should be a good time.
~Iced and heated the knee and back of the knee last night and got lots of sleep. Knee felt quite a bit better today but not 100%. Had it been a squat day I would have deviated from the plan. Feeling a bit of pressure today with pulling heavy off the floor. Once out of 4 weeks if a bit of a mind fuck.
Working up felt good but the weights were not feeling any lighter until after the first 243 set. After that they felt great and I even hit an easy 3rd rep on my last set.
Core did not remain as tight as I would have liked but other than that the weights weren’t brutally heavy. Felt I could have hit an extra rep on the last heavy set pretty easily but didn’t want to ruin my down sets, so I opted to blow up my last down set with 3 extra reps, which is very possible a 5rep best. Speed above the knees faltered on the heavy sets causing a soft lock out. Better start position off the floor seemed to help that. Beltless and remained conscious ;0)
Bench Press paused
143×5
172×5
200×5 x4
These were tons easier than last month. Very last set was insanely slow and controlled.
Shrug
435×5 x5 Straps
Ab Wheel from knees
BWx10 x5
Super set. Shrugs are up 5lbs from last week. Even though I am using a bit of english I still feel they are pretty strong. Ab wheel was vicious. Seems my abs are sore from Monday(?).
~Chalk – Quick tip. Don’t think of rubbing your hands on the block of chalk. Use the block to paint the chalk onto your hands. Little chips missing are great places to get individual fingers. When benching I extra chalk my palm. When squatting extra chalk goes on the ball of my thumb and when pulling extra goes in the groove where my palm meets my fingers and on the inside/side of my thumb. Where ever the bar hits your hands I paint it on thick. When benching I also chalk the bench. When pulling with straps I will chalk the straps, which also helps knock the glaze off your block of chalk if it gets glazed over and doesn’t chalk well.
~Straps – They are very good to use but they can throw you off if you are not used to them. 1- get them on and tight to the wrists. 2-slap them both around the bar. I say both because once you are used to it you will be almost twice as fast getting set up. 3-wrap them around the bar once fully and get your grip placement on the bar set. 4-finish the final wrap.
You want to be fast getting the straps done up do you don’t kill your groove. I like to wrap them completely around so the tab doesn’t drag my leg. This isn’t really necessary if you are using cheapo straps. I highly recommend Spud Straps and if you do that route do a google search for CnP’s steps to break them in.
~Been feeling pretty beat up and looking back I can see why. I really haven’t had much time off this year. I took is a bit easier when pulled my groin maybe sort of…. I really just changed my focus from squatting to GMs. I am not sure what I will do Friday but I am going to take it a bit easy for a week or two. I will still get in and get some work done. I don’t want to get rusty as they always makes the first week or two back pure hell. I have some ideas but won’t really speculate now. I have been doing sheiko for almost a year now. It will be a year in a month, so 11 months now.
~Re-watched Pandorum again and it was even better the second time around. I caught some stuff I missed the first time. We Bought a Zoo was a pretty good movie if you like that kind of feel good movie that has some chick flick appeal to it. Our ol pal Damen has gained a few. Man on a Ledge was a lot better than I expected from the previews. By the looks I didn’t expect the plot to go that far but then again I honestly don’t look that closely to the trailers on the TV as I have a huge adversity against advertising. It is Hollywoody and the acting could have been better. Lastly we watched Mirror, Mirror. It was not bad but as we sat down for it I was thinking I was getting ready to watch Snow White and the Huntsman. Weird, or disgusting depending on how you view it, that 3 versions of this story come out at the same time. I understand Grimm’s wasn’t that good and Huntsman was great. This one was good enough but I would call it a Disney version by the feel of it. Julia Roberts was fun to watch in her roles and the aged version. Well I am about out of time so that will be it. I know I suck at reviews but I really don’t like risking spoiling the plot.
KGM Is Swole Dudeness 