Ironblayde's House of Squats

Looks like the Christmas weight might be starting to come off.

Body weight: 275.6lbs
Bench: 10x45, 10x95, 10x135, 5x185, 5x205, 3x5x225
Incline DB bench: 8x60, 8x70, 7x85
DB tricep extension: 2x8x50, 8x60
Face pull: 3x8

I took a deload on the bench press today, and used a significantly narrower grip than I typically do. The idea was to take some of the strain off my shoulders, which have been giving me trouble all week. When I wake up at night and push myself up to get a drink of water, my shoulders hurt. I've been icing them at night and am hoping that with another week off of heavy pressing, things will be back to normal, or at least normal enough to get some work done. They didn't bother me at all during today's session, which is a good sign. I'm going to get face pulls back into my routine a couple of times a week; they were my favorite assistance exercise the last time I had bench-induced shoulder pain.

I'm kind of ashamed of missing the last rep on my final set of incline presses. We weren't taking much rest between sets, and I'll bet I'd have finished eight if I had taken a little more time. As it was, the rep got about halfway up and then stalled. Stupid triceps. The extensions we did were with a single dumbbell held overhead with both hands, then lowered far enough to get a good stretch out of it. Face pulls are face pulls; I noticed that these felt twice as hard on the machine we used today as they do on the one I use at my gym. I'm not even going to bother recording the weights as it's clear that they don't really mean anything.

I did a bit of looking around for spring powerlifting meets last night and didn't find a whole lot in the area, at least from the federations that I'm familiar with. The only other thing I saw was a meet that's a few hours away and looks to have been about 90% teenagers in years past, which doesn't appeal to me at all. Maybe I will end up doing that push/pull after all.

Body weight: 277.8lbs
Squat: 5x45, 5x135, 5x225, 3x315, 1x365, 5x3x425
Standing hamstring curl: 3x10 (per leg)
Glute kickback: 3x8 (per leg)

It's been two weeks since my last big squat day, since last week was given over to recovering from deadlifts, and it went well. I got through five triples without any fear that I would miss. The weight is damned heavy, though, and there are certainly still things that I can improve upon. I could be a little more stable at the top between reps, and a little more consistent in my form. On the third set in particular, I felt like I was hitting a slightly different depth each time. I'm not worried about missing depth since I always go deeper than I have to, but consistency is good.

Zack told me today that 100% RAW has a meet coming up in early March. It's this year's incarnation of the one I went to last February for my first meet, and unfortunately, like last year, it's a push/pull, meaning that only the bench press and deadlift are contested. That was fine for my first time; at the time, I didn't even know whether it was something I'd enjoy or ever do again. Now that I'm pursuing it more seriously, I'm not thrilled about the idea of going to a meet and not squatting. The squat is my best lift, damnit, and I have to avenge my shitty squat performance at the meet in November. I think I'll start looking around for some other spring meet I can attend.

I skipped my session on Friday because I was feeling very beat up from all the heavy pressing. I had pain in my triceps that felt both more acute and more localized than typical DOMS, and my shoulders have been nagging me all week. The pain in the triceps has mostly cleared now. The shoulder soreness remains but isn't worrying me too much. I still plan to deload on the bench in the coming week, and get back to heavy work the week after. Today I just did a few simple things.

Body weight: 278.2lbs
Elliptical: 15min @ 140 avg. HR
Press: 3x25x45
Face pull: 5x10x150

My body weight is still high on account of all the Christmas goodies and hasn't come down appreciably. I know cleaning up my diet is going to be the biggest factor in that, and I'll try to make some progress on that front, but I'm also going to throw in some cardio a couple of times a week and see whether that does anything for me. I haven't been doing any kind of conditioning work for some time now and my endurance really sucks as a result.

I did 25-rep presses with the bar just to get the blood flowing in my arms. It certainly had that effect; my triceps felt like they were twice their normal size when I was done. These were actually surprisingly difficult towards the end. The face pulls are my old go-to exercise when the bench press is bothering my shoulders.

Finally, I posted my year-end goal on Facebook awhile ago and I really should mention it here too. I should have mentioned it here first. My original goal for 2012 was to hit a 1400 total, which I suppose would be something like 515/335/550 on the big three. After seeing the revised class standards at 100% Raw, I figured I'd revise my goal slightly to 1402, which is the qualifying mark for Class I at 275.

I'm not all that great at predicting where I'll be a year from now strength-wise. In 2011, my two big goals were to bench three plates and squat five, and I missed both. I underestimated the degree to which I'd experience diminishing returns as I moved into my intermediate phase, and my months-long experiment with 5/3/1 yielded little success. Maybe this year I'll do a little better.

Body weight: 278.6lbs
Bench: 10x45, 5x95, 5x135, 3x185, 3x225, (3,2,3,3,3)x285
Incline bench: 8x135, 7x185, 7x165
Incline dumbbell fly: 3x8x35

I had a tough time on the bench today. On the second set, I had a slip-up like last time where I lost my position somewhat after the first rep. Unlike last week, I was not able to complete the set this time. Luckily I still got through the remaining sets, so when I get back to doing triples, I will not bother to repeat 285; I'll just go straight to 290. That may not be for a few weeks, though, as I plan to deload on the bench next week to give my shoulders a bit of rest and then probably work up to a 1RM the week after that.

Zack noted some unevenness in my bench press when the reps started getting really hard, so I'll probably start doing more assistance work with dumbbells too, in the hopes that it will improve my stability and help to even out any asymmetries that I may have. We didn't talk about this until we were already doing incline presses, and my triceps gave out completely towards the end of that, which is why I didn't do any dumbbell presses today. The failure on that last set of inclines was so complete that even when Zack started pulling the weight off me, I still couldn't push it away.

I'm still very happy with the progress I've made on the bench over the past several weeks. Hopefully 315 will go up on test day.

Zack was out today, so I went to Lakeside and did a squat/push/pull session, just like the good old days.

Body weight: 278.8lbs
Squat: 5x45, 5x135, 3x225, 3x315, 3x365, 3x405
Press: 5x45, 5x95, 3x135, 3x155, 3x175, 1x200
DB row: 5x100, 5x110, 5x120 (each arm)

I kept the squats relatively light because my back is still struggling to recover from Friday's deadlifts. Only the top set was difficult, and it wasn't difficult enough that I was in any danger of failing it. I could have done more reps, or more sets, but the idea was to let myself recover a little. I'll get back to doing heavy sets across on the squat next week.

I followed mostly the same plan for the press, working up to just one heavy triple. Since presses don't bother my back, and since the 3x175 set felt pretty good, I decided to go for a PR single, and got it! 200 is a milestone I've been looking forward to for a very long time. I didn't use any hip movement on this, just pressed it straight up. As with all my single attempts, it slowed down markedly right around eye level or so, but once I got it over my head, locking it out was no problem. I'm very excited about this. It's great to have my upper-body lifts moving since they're the ones that give me the most trouble.

Finally, I did a few sets of rows. I took out one of the 130-pound dumbbells to attempt a final set, and discovered to my dismay that the handles are much thicker than those on all the lighter dumbbells, and there is no knurling. I don't know if the regular handles are just too cheap to support 130 pounds or what. Whatever the case, it was not a welcome discovery, as it means I won't be using those dumbbells anytime soon. My grip already troubles me when I use the 120s. I'll have to get to the point where I can do a lot of reps with those before I can think about rowing the 130s.

It was a great day at the gym! Back to my regular routine on Wednesday.