Shoulders and Arms Oct 29

I'm still at a loss as to why overhead pressing hurts my shoulder so much less than benching, but I'm not going to argue with a good thing.

Standing strict press

Sets of 5 @ 45, 65, 95, 115, 135

Singles at 145, 155, 165

Tried 175 but it didn't feel right, only got it up a few inches before I decided to bail and rack it. I really wish I could do this off blocks, taking it out of the squat rack and setting up my feet without looking down is annoying.

95 x 15

One-arm barbell shrugs - Interesting movement, suggested for athletes in a Poliquin article.

10 @ 45, 65, 95, 135

Shoulder Raises - 3 x 20 front, side and rear with 10's. Can't go heavier but burning out with lighter weight seems fine.

EZ Curls - sets of 10 up to 90

One arm hammer curls on preacher bench with deep stretch - I find these have been helping quite a bit with my tendonitis - sets of 20 up to 15lbs

Cable Pushdowns

Sets of 6 up to stack (not sure of weight) then a few sets of 20 going down

Heavy Box Squats and Rowing - Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Very satisfying workout. Admittedly I was a bit worried going in. 390 is the heaviest double I've ever done so I tried to make sure I stayed properly hydrated and fed throughout the day. Had a great breakfast but got busy at work and didn't have anything else until some oatmeal with my pre-workout at about 4pm when I stopped at home. Felt okay when I got to the gym but still a bit hungry. I find it disconcerting to crave food while training.

Triples up to 315
Singles at 335 and 355 - did the 355 single without wraps

Wrapped up

1 x 375
3 x 2 @ 390

These were pretty satisfying, especially with the guy in the squat rack next to me yelling and screaming his way through some sets at 185. He also tied knee wraps around his thighs, not sure what was going on there.

225 x 15 - went for 20 but shoulder wasn't handling the load for that length of time very well.

Concept 2 Rowing - This is not fun right after heavy box squats. I rowed for 15 mins trying to keep the cals/hr above 1100. Lots of light headed, rusty tasting fun that was. Throwing in a lot more conditioning either along with or instead of assistance work since I've made the decision to travel to do at least one major tournament next year.

Bench Oct 26

This workout was admittedly kind of shitty but I have to maintain perspective. I've now built up great bench momentum and been hitting close to 300 for high volume training weights twice in my life, both times sidetracked by injuries. It's easy to mope about the fact that I'm having to take three steps back and a running start again but it definitely won't help and it might hurt.

Triples up to 245

265 x 3 - I was surprised I hit this, wasn't even close last week, but then...

265 x 2 x 2 - if after surprisingly finishing the previous triple I had tried another rep, it probably wouldnt have felt as hard as the second rep of these couple of sets. Awfulness.

225 x 8, 6, 4

This was okay. The shoulder won't be at the level for a while where I can handle weight and volume that challenges the rest of the structures that've been fine the whole time.

Close grip cable rows up to 250 x 6
200 x 15
150 x 20
100 x 20

Wide grip cable rows to chest

Painful but necessary. Didn't keep track of weight on these but it was light.

Box Squats Oct 21 - Getting Closer

These were pretty awesome, aside from some slight issues with belt placement. It was riding up and interfering with how I like to hold my air. Nothing serious though.

Triples up to 315

Singles at 335 and 355

Wrapped knees

4 x 3, 1 x 5 at 370

365 was easy last week so as expected these weren't much different. Strong, fast and even felt confident enough to steal two extra reps at the end of my last set. Thinking back to how hard I had to work for my current PR of 390 x 1, it feels pretty awesome to be smashing a set of five after four triples at a weight which (until lifted otherwise) is damn near 95%.

From that statement, you can also probably imagine how I feel about staring down the barrel of my next workout, which will be the aforementioned PR for three doubles, likely without much drama.

Good. Good is the answer.

90 walking lunges

Bench Oct 19 - Not out of the woods yet

I'm definitely happy to be back benching at all, but god is it awful. I've had to abandon my pipe dream of dropping back into the program where I was and instead just start from scratch finding a groove that allows me to work the muscle.

Triples up to 245

Double at 265 - was planning on a triple. It didn't... yeah, just no.

225 x 9
205 x 9
185 x 9

These were wierd. I was able to draw two conclusions - that heavy weight seems to bother my particular injury more than high volume, and that to a certain threshold around 225, the injury becoming a factor is time based.

It seems to take me about the same length of time to bench press for nine reps regardless of the weight, and at that point in time under tension the shoulder gives out. From these findings, it seems that sets of 6-8 between 70-75% will be a good approach to fully re-introducing the shoulder to the wild. Will test this theory next week.

Box squats Friday Oct 17 I think?

Not as consistent with these lately as I'd like and it can be hard to remember which day I did what.

Triples up to 315

Single at 335

6 x 3 @ 350

These were a bit more good morning-ey than I would have liked. Maybe it's because I was tired and a bit hungry which was causing me to mentally check out a bit between sets, but it could also easily be that it was my first time with that much weight on my back without the support of the knee wraps. I still feel my knees by the end of the workout but they are definitely getting more stable.

Some walking lunges and duck walking, short on time so just did it till it hurt.

Roll-a-Thon Oct 10 and Box Squats Oct 12

Great workout. Not much else to say. I was going to do these Friday night but I did a roll-a-thon instead. Yes, my first night back after a four month layoff and recovering from a serious shoulder injury was a roll-a-thon. 

Basically it was a gathering of all the different Arashi-Do schools in the area and it was a great opportunity to get on the mats with some people I had never met and many that I had simply missed. All the higher level partners I had were great about keeping the roll solid but staying conscious of the injury. I'm very blessed that way, not many goons in our schools. I did six rounds overall before having to break for four to try to work the shoulder out. I figured at that point that if I needed twenty minutes to feel okay, that it was a good idea to call it a night. It felt so damn good to roll that even though I was inarguably set back a bit, i'm glad I went. Anyway, box squats:

Triples up to 335

Singles at 355, 375

3 x 2 @ 385

The shoulder was bugging me pretty badly but it felt a bit better with the heavier weight since I was keeping the whole body so tight. With lighter weight I was a bit lazier and the shoulder suffered for it. These were nice and clean, looking forward to attacking 6 x 3 @ 350 without wraps on sunday.

Leg press

Sets of 10 @ 90, 180, 270, 360, 450, 540, 630, 720

Walking lunges

2 x 30

Three months? Seriously?

Okay, so I've seriously slipped on the blogging. I've started a new job selling Fords and BJJ has taken a back seat. Thankfully powerlifting is still doable thanks entirely to the flexibility of kinda throwing it wherever it fits in the schedule.

In sad news, i've got a pretty serious shoulder injury. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it happened but I aggrevated it while trying out John Meadows' 6way shoulder raises. Great movement, just wasn't a good idea to push it once the shoulder started feeling tweaky. The next day I could barely lift it and it hasn't gotten a lot better in the three weeks since despite mobility work every day and an ART treatment. I was up to 5 x 3 @ 270 on the bench pretty easy and snappy. Even box squats are difficult now because it's really painful even to set up under the bar, but they're doable so i've been hitting them hard. Today's training was pretty solid:

Warm-up triples up to 335

Single at 355 with wraps

5 x 3 @ 365 with wraps

I expected these to be harder, honestly. On wednesday i did 6 x 3 at 345 without wraps and it felt really strong and fast, knees felt good too but today I can't recall a single rep that felt grindy or slow. I've now hit doubles at 380 and 385 for three sets and it felt very good, looking forward to taking 390 for a ride in four weeks. 400+ box squats for me have been grounds where angels fear to tread but with the momentum i've got going I have no doubt that in 16 weeks i'll be hitting the big four oh oh for three doubles no problem. It's an awesome thought. Just have to stay focused, not skip steps and put in the work.