This week began awkwardly, with the shoulders somewhat tired following the impromptu weighted chin-up test. The chin-ups themselves were fine, but a less-than-perfect rep in the subsequent overhead press work gave me some immediate – and negative – feedback. Fortunately the presses were being done kneeling in a power rack (the rack isn’t tall enough to do them standing), and there wasn’t _too_ much weight on the bar. Just enough to make a suitably alerting noise.
Friday
DE SQ/DL. The squat is not exactly my favourite exercise, and I’ll switch to deadlifts more than happily. On Friday, however, I decided to test the shoulders (squatting always seems to be a good shoulder-pain indicator); quickly discovering that they weren’t too bad at all.
My depth, however, was another story.
Sunday
DE Bench. Started with a few thumbless pull-ups off the back of the rack, which was nice and slippery. Moved over to the chinning bar proper for some hand-over-hand stuff (from memory there’s a bit of this on one of the Sonnon videos Jim pointed to recently), before falling to the floor for some presses. Good fun.
Pull-ups (thumbless, back of rack) 3
Hand-over-hand work on chinning bar
Bench press 2×10@40/88
Bench press (close grip) 2×10@40/88, 9×3@60/132
Band pressdowns – blue and green, high reps
Monday
ME SQ/DL. Back to the rack pulls, this time one hole lower than last week (about knee height). Used a sumo stance and double overhand grip for all but the last couple of sets (switched to conventional stance, alternate grip). Worked up to a single at 160kg, which is still well short of previous levels, but much stronger than pulls of the last fortnight.
Hindu squat (sumo stance, heels remaining on ground – slow) 50@bw
Hanging knee raise 4×20@bw
Rack pull (knee height) 2×15@60/132, 2×10@100/225, 2×5@120/264, 2×3@140/315, 1@160/352
Wednesday
ME Bench. With the funniest thing I’ve heard all week being the insult ‘imaginary lat syndrome’ (not directed at me, I hasten to add) I decided to return to the bent row/chin-up supersets. This time it was 5 bodyweight chins, immediately followed by a set of 10 bent rows at 40kg (felt too light at first, but was quite enough after a few sets with very short breaks. Only 3 rounds this time – I suspect including a couple of sets of chins in the warm-up wasn’t the wisest move.
Bench press (close grip) 2×10@40/88, 2×10@60/132
Chin-up/bent row superset (only 10-15sec break between supersets) 3x 5@bw/10@40/88
Anconeus sidekick – light weights only, just trying them
Band pressdowns – blue and green, high reps