Beyond 5/3/1 Close-Grip Bench August 2

My two current upper body days for Beyond 5/3/1 are CG bench and normal bench - for a couple of reasons. I have a hard time with standing presses using an olympic bar, especially lately because of my neck. I tried 5/3/1 press with kettlebells for a while once, but because the kettlebells only go up in increments of 4KG it was a bit redundant - the way I've got my excel set up it would be a couple of full cycles before any numbers would change. I still do kettlebell pressing as assistance work, though. The other reason is that for a 6-month stretch I was using the Patrick Nyman bench program and got fantastic results from it - hard triples at 255 to easy triples at 280! The program alternates CG and normal grip each week and it felt really good - plus tricep strength/stability is super important for BJJ.

I'm planning on investing in a strongman log and switching out CG bench for log pressing. I'm hoping that the log pressing will be easier on my joints, plus log pressing is badass and should have great carryover to the mats.

Anyway, this was today's training. I'm still being careful with my neck - jamming it into the bench when I arch is doable but not comfortable. Usually I stop my sets when the reps start to get ugly, but right now I'm stopping 1-2 reps short of that point.

Warm-ups - Triples at 45, 95, 115, 135, 155

3 @ 175
3 @ 200
10 @ 225 (Projected PR of 299.9)

These felt surprisingly good, actually. I took the tenth a bit high on my chest and felt my elbows flare, making for an awkward groove on the concentric phase. It still went up nice and fast once I got it off my chest and tucked my elbows, but I didn't want to be too greedy. One of the great things about any version of 5/3/1 is that it's all designed around building momentum over the long term. You try your best to set PR's every workout, but even if you're training around an injury or just having a shitty high-gravity day in general, you can stay on schedule and keep grinding.

Joker Sets:

3 @ 240
3 @ 250
1 @ 260

The first rep at 260 felt good, but arching hard was starting to take its toll.

Back-off Sets - 1-2 second pause on the chest

3 x 8 @ 175

Did some pull-aparts and pressdowns when I got to work but too many things on my plate to get any real assistance work done.