Started with 5/3/1 bench, which honestly felt great up until my heavy single. Warmed up a ton, including some pushups, plate raises, and extra band stuff I don't normally do, which felt great. Did some things slightly different with the benching itself; first off, unracked in a slightly differrent way, flaring my elbows a little more, which felt good up until 220 - I think it can work, I just need to be more agressive with it and perhaps set up a little further back. Secondly, in my warmups sets at 95 and 135 I started with long pause reps, then moved on to short pause and touch n go. I don't know why, but long pause always feels best to me. Anyways, hit 95 and 135, then moved on to 175 x 5, and 195 x 3, both solid and easy. Loaded up 220 and hit it for a single, and it just wasn't too great. Had a little trouble getting it out, then the rep itself was just a little slower and more grindy than I wanted. However, as I have been saying perhaps this isn't a bad thing - being able to press through a slower rep might actually be good for me. So I am goign to continue to just plug along, trust my programming, and try my best to only doubt/rethink it if I end up failing.
Next, backed off to 195 and hit it for 3 long paused reps on the 3 mins. I love the way these feel. The weight just sits on my chest and I feel like it should be impossible to move, and yet on reps 1 and 2 I moved it so fast and easily. 3 was pretty tough though. Similar story at 175 - reps 1-4 were easy, 5 slowed down and got a little grindy.
Next up, heavy rows. I pushed these up to 205 today. I really feel like I should work these up heavier and heavier over the course of the summer - it just makes sense to me that the more weight I can confidently row, for reps, the easier and easier deadlifts with similarly heavy weights will be. So for example, rowing 155 for 5 x 10 with perfect form is great, but rowing 255 for a few sets of 4-6, even with shitty form, will do more for my back in relation to my deadlifts. Lower back felt kind of shitty on these, though, and I want to really be careful not to hurt myself. Rowed 205 for 3 x 10 though, on the 3 minutes. Really felt it in my lower lats.
Next, strict press went well. Loaded up 140 today, and hit it for a 5 x 5, on the 2 minutes. Ended up getting through the whole thing, and getting a REALLY tough 6th rep on the final set. Nothing crazy impressive, but that's some quality volume, and I think I am really improving my ability to press with less rest (i.e. work capacity). I'm thinking maybe next week I will do something like 5-4-3-2-1-max.
Finally, light rows - 5 x 10 at 135, underhand, on the 2 mins. I definitely liked doing them at this slightly heavier weight better. I just never really feel the lighter weights much. But this was light enough that I could still do sets of 10 on the 2 mins, while also feeling it a lot in my back and having to be a little less strict. Maybe I will keep the weight at 135 for light stuff, for a while at least, and just play with reps and sets.
So overall, good day. Not feeling great about the strength portion, and I just kind of don't feel like I am leaning out as much as I want right now. But workout was fine, I look good, and I am making progress. It is just hard not to get impatient and despondent - what I REALLY want is to get stronger, but I am trying to work on work capacity, losing fat, etc... so I'm annoyed about not feeling strong, and when I don;t even LOOK as good as I want, it just gets me angry haha. But that's okay. Just gotta keep the chin up. I'm doing great, and come fall I will be very happy that I put in the time to look better, recover better, and improve my ceiling for strength gains. Lets keep at it.
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