Anger Bench

Today was a kind of shitty, mostly angry upper body day. That is all. Here's how I felt.

Started with bench. I tried to warm up faster than usual, which might be part of the reason for my kind of bad day. Who knows. Anyways, hit the bar, then 95, then 135. Then did 155 for 5, 175 for 3, and set up 195. I hit it for two, but then completely missed the third rep - which didn't really make sense. The second rep was tough, but I should have at LEAST just barely missed three, if not gotten it. I'm not sure if I just lost focus, or what happened, but the bottom line is I only got it for 2 with a BAD miss on the third, and that made me really angry. So I tried my best to just massacre the rest of my workout.

5 x 10 bench at 125 went well. No real problems on the first four sets, but got 15 on the 5th set, just barely missing lockout on rep 16. I think I will take the weight up on these next week, although I don't know whether to go to 130, or to just go up to 135 and accept that I might not be able to finish all 5 sets of 10 the first month. We will see how I feel next Tues.

Next was Kroc rows. These were tough this week. I was feeling a little disheartened and battling that with rage, and Kroc rows don't work so well unless you are completely focused and going all out. I rowed the 110 for 25 reps each arm, but I feel like I could have maybe gone a little harder. Mentally I just wasn't all there.

Next was overhead press. I went a little heavy on this this tuesday. First set I did was at 125, and I hit that for 6 good reps - I got a 7th, but I used some leg drive on it. Then, I hit 5 at 115, and then 8 or 9 at 95. My triceps were pretty done.

Finished with pullups. Again, these were really mentally tough - it was the end of a bad workout, I was tired and angry and just didn't want to do them, AND they felt really hard. But I did 2 sets of 10, and then a third set to failure (13). The straps have been really helping keep elbow pain to a minimum.

Pullups. Most effective when done on a beach. 

Anyways, not the best day. But, later when I was home (about 3 hours after training), I started benching again and worked up to 195 for another double. Which made me feel a little less angry. But that's about it for today. Hopefully benching will go a little better next tuesday.