Heavy bench + Heavy 5 x 10

Today was an interesting day. Overall, it was pretty good - I had some troubles while benching, but I also had some insights and unexpected strength today, which was cool.

HAHAHAHA this guy....

Started out with 5/3/1 bench. The weights weren't really hard today, but I was having some serious trouble with dizziness under the bar - it's affected me before while benching (like last month when I got really dizzy under 185 and only hit it for 4 when I wanted 5), but today it was on EVERY set, including my lighter sets. I hit 135 for 5, then 160 for 6 without much trouble, but with serious dizziness. Then I loaded up 180 and went for it. Again, crazy dizzy under the bar. I still god the RX'd 5 reps, but missed on rep 6. And honestly, it's tough to tell whether I missed because of strength or just because I'm dizzy and unfocused under the weight. Either way, I still got the RX'd reps, AND luckily next month there is an overlap so 5 week will be 180 AGAIN, so I kind of have another crack at it. Even so, I felt pretty frustrated that i'm still doing alright, but I feel as though I could be doing better if it weren't for this problem.

HOWEVER, I had a bit of a potential breakthrough during my 5 x 10. Last week I did this at 125, so this week I decided to take the weight up to 135 and accept that I probably would only be able to get 2 or 3 sets of 10, and then have to accept less reps on the last few sets this week - but that I'd rather go heavy and have to take a few weeks to work on it than to only go up 5 lbs. When I set up for my first set, I did something a little different than my setup for the heavy weights: I wasn't "looser," my back was still as tight as I could get it and I still had plenty of leg drive. But I was arched a little less hard - I gave myself maybe an extra half-inch of looseness in my setup. And I banged out the 10 reps without much problem, and without dizziness. Keeping myself to 90 seconds rest, I was able to get through 4 full sets of 10 with 135, which was way better than I ever expected. On the 5th set, I only got 5 reps, but that was largely because I was crazy sweaty and was a dumb ass and didn't bring a proper shirt, So I was slipping all over the bench. But ANYWAYS, the way it felt, giving myself that extra little bit of "looseness" in my setup/arch was not enough to weaken my bench strength at all, but was JUST enough to make a huge difference in how dizzy I was under the bar. Who knows if it will make any difference under heavy weights - we will have to wait till friday and next tuesday to see - but hopefully this little tweak in my setup will help me to get rid of the dizziness and increase focus and tightness in my heavy reps, which will help me squeeze out that extra rep or two that I've had trouble with the past few weeks. We will see.

Arching hard works for this fucker... but maybe I need to cool it just a little bit. 

I was feeling pretty good about those reps at 135, so I got pretty psyched about my kroc rows. Hit the 110's for 30 reps apiece - still feel like I could be going harder/heavier on these, but this was an improvement over last week, and my back definitely felt it.

Next, did some lighter overhead pressing for a lot of reps - put 75 on the bar and pressed it for 12, then rested 60 seconds, did another set of 12 - 60 more seconds, 12, 60 more seconds, 9, then 60 seconds and a final set of 7. Nothing too special, just trying to get some volume in for my triceps and shoulders, tire them out even more.

Finished with some kipped pullups. I feel a lot better about these after doing some strict pullups on friday - I think the kips are having a lot of carryover, and are helping teach me to use the right muscles when pulling from a dead hang as well. Did 2 sets of 10 and then a set of 15 with the straps, which is an improvement over the 13's of the last few workouts. I'm gonna keep at these, keep pushing at least one set to a max, and then see where my strict pulls are at towards the end of the summer.

I used to love kipping pullups. Then I hated them. Now I re-love them, but only in a very specific context. See how we evolve as lifters? 

Overall, a pretty good day. I would have liked to have had a better time with that 180 - heavy bench for max reps still seems to be a weakness for me. However, I've got a new strategy that might help fix the issue, and every other part of the workout went really well. And whatever problems I may be having, my bench IS definitely getting stronger, which is the important part. Just gotta keep at it, keep experimenting, and it will (slowly but surely) get better.