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Monday, October 8, 2018

Up Again

I've changed up the bench press training slightly in that I no longer follow my usual cycle template. Due to travel, I'll be taking long layoffs from training over the next 6-7 months. The goal for now is to maintain strength with higher reps, then run a couple of peaking cycles next summer. So I'll start off with sets of 6 and stick with the same weight for a while, increasing slowly when the current weights start feeling light. No real plan here.

Close-grip presses will be the main assistance exercise, followed by incline presses for 3-4 sets of 5. I'll keep overhead pressing in the rotation, doing behind-the-neck presses on one day and military/push presses on my heavy squat/deadlift day. This should help me build a good base and improve shoulder and triceps power.

I've stepped up the volume of band pull-aparts. Not sure about sets and reps, I just try to do tons of them every day, and from different angles.

In the past two weeks, I did:
  • Deadlifts - worked up to singles with 465-475-495-495. Could have done a bit more, but I have to be careful with these.
  • Squats - worked up to 355x5 paused, then two sets of 445x3. Very pleased with this after 30+ days of neither squatting nor pulling.
  • Bench press - 315 x 2 sets x 6. I'll stick with this weight until it feels light, then increase by 5 lbs. and still try to get 6 reps. On a different day, I got up to 275x5 on close-grip presses and did multiple sets with 265 lbs.
  • Tried overhead pressing from the front position for the first time in forever. I managed a military press of 185x3 and a push press with 200x3, which was cool.

2 comments:

MichiganMethod said...

I need to do more band pull-aparts; like the amount that you're doing. I bring the bands to work and then forget to do them. Or someone sees me doing them and when I tell them why, they ask me if I workout. Those people are on the list. I'm pretty lucky though, that I'm still holding a good workout schedule. When I've had to take significant time off from working out, I get all weird about what food I can or can't eat. Mostly I fail to see the reason to eat enough protein if I'm not working out and then it gives me an excuse to eat junk.

Nice squat triples.

Fatman said...

Pull-aparts really work. I also do "heavy" reps with a cable set for general strength. But if you're having shoulder trouble, light ones for hundreds of reps are the ticket. Do micro-reps in the stretched position and vary the angle of your arms until you find a really painful spot, then attack that spot.

Also, dislocations.