Tryhard Mentality

Training has been going okay. Another 3-week training cycle followed by a week of heavy singles.

My shoulders and elbows have been hurting a bit so I substituted one-arm dumbbell presses for barbell presses and threw on a SlingShot on my heavy bench press day. I may stick with dumbbell pressing for a while because it feels pretty good. Also because Joseph Curtis Hise said that the barbell press sucks:

The Hise Deltoid Exercise

I haven't done much dumbbell pressing in years, so the exercise felt a bit awkward. Weights from 40 through 70 lbs. felt very light and more or less the same. Then 75x5 felt super heavy. Many years ago I could clean and press 90 lbs. for a few reps. I'm nowhere near that weight now.

For my low volume weeks, I need to back off the weight on all exercises. It's supposed to be heavy singles, not max singles. But it's hard not to get sucked back into the tryhard mentality and feel like I'm slacking off if my spine isn't being crushed.

My traps feel incredibly beat up all the time. No idea why.

Training lifts:

Standing overhead press: 165x10, 185x8, 205x3

Squat: 425x5, 445x3, 475x2, 470x3

Deadlift: 450x3, 480x1

That last one was supposed to be 470x2, but I did not load the bar correctly.

Bench press: 335x7, 355x3

My working weights on the bench press are stagnating, but my heavy singles are progressing. I would prefer the opposite.

SlingShot bench press: 345x9, 365x3, 370x2

Close-grip bench press: 315x5

Single-rep lifts:

Squat: 445x1, 485x1, 515x1, 455x1

Standing overhead press: 205x1, 225x1, 235x1, 210x1

Deadlift: 455x1, 495x1, 505x1, 415x3

Bench press: 335x1, 365x1, 385x1

I have brought my grip in to mitigate the incredibly high hooks on the bench. Unracking the bar is still a major struggle as soon as the weight gets over 315 lbs. or so. I'm thinking of buying some sort of pad for the bench to gain an extra 2-3 inches of height (hue).