The safety dance

Since I am perennially a man without a hat, I can make that joke in conjunction with taking delivery of my new EFTS safety squat bar.

Did some empty bar reps in the living room to get a feel for it after I attached the handles. I think it’ll work out well.

Now, if I can dispel the tightness, soreness, and swelling from my right ankle/calf/knee so I can try and squat heavy to explore my approximate 1RM tomorrow, that would be lovely. I’ll be thrilled with 405#, and not dissatisfied with anything over 365. Deadlifts are similarly mentally anticipated to have lost about 10% from my PR last year, so 455#+ is really what I’m looking for with a conventional pull.

Benching was a surprisingly non-deprecated 245# (only lost 20# off my PR despite the months and months of injured discomfort and bullshit) and my overhead press was a nearly complete shock – a 15# PR of 180# (I was really hoping for a 1xBW rep @ 190#, but 185# wasn’t getting up more than halfway).

This is the new shit

Currently crafting a new lifting routine. The two naming candidates are “BSOD” and “666.” Number of surprised people: 0.

As previously noted, fucking off time is over. My plan right now is to go to six days a week, three lifts a day. This is informed by an amalgamation and distillation of my own experience (independently, as well as my tenure under Josh Bryant’s guidance) combined with a recent exposure to and curiosity about the so-called “Bulgarian” school, tempered by a cursory review of Jason Ferruggia’s program[1].

So, here’s how it looks…

Ratchet and Clank

Image via Wikipedia

So, paying attention to my own advice, after running up to and against my probable maxes in October, recalibration occurred and the next iteration of the upward-trending sawtooth wave pattern has commenced. Relative to the last reset (July 10), here’s how things stacked up:

Bench Press: 1RM: 240 (+15), new 1st wave max: 165

Overhead Press: 1RM 135 (-15), new 1st wave max: 85

Squat: 1RM 325 (+60), new 1st wave max: 225

Deadlift: 1RM 425 (+20), new 1st wave max: 275

Of course, losing the better part of two months to the broken hand and subsequent plague really hampered everything but the squat (since it doesn’t rely on grasping the bar, it could still be done with relative aplomb). The P&V page has been summarily updated.

Weekend Workouts

15/9/3: Overhead Press (Friday) | Deadlifts (Sunday)

It’s also “weigh and measure weekend,” though I don’t know if I’ll snap some progress pictures to share or not. Feeling a little squidgy after entirely too much coffee and some much-needed beer.

OHP Friday frankly kind of sucked.  Deadlifting on Sunday went better.

Wait, I know what this is…

… it’s that “weightlifting” thing I used to do. Five weeks since the break, and, other than needing to stretch my wrist, and not move the pinkie & thumb in certain (read: painful) ways, things are more or less back to where they should be, so I can resume my reset after the rep-calculating work just prior.

15/9/3 – Overhead Press & Squat

Warmup:

Overhead Press: 2×10 @ 45 / 1×10 @ 65

Squat: 1×15 @ 45 / 1×10 @ 135

Work Sets:

Overhead Press: 3×5 @ 85 / 3×5+3 @ 95

Squat: 3×5 @ 175 / 3×5+5 @ 195

I curtailed both before the heaviest set in the interest of not overdoing it. I will probably revisit these same weights, just adding the 105 / 215 (or 225) top end sets next session.

Two By Two

Nothing whatsoever to do with Noah’s Ark. Continuing the exploration of the edges of my personal envelope in the form of 2 rep maxes. Today was Overhead Press and Squats.

Overall results were somewhat mixed, but held some surprises.

Not quite getting the hang of a Thursday*

15/9/3+ Overhead Press

While being terribly, frustratingly busy at the office is good for taking a late lunch (and, even at 3pm, there were folks in the office gym, somewhat surprisingly), it didn’t make for a particularly thrilling workout  – half an hour on the fairly-evil “cross country” program on the Precor elliptical.

After work, there was one moment of respite – the softball game got rained out, so we didn’t have to get our asses handed to us by a team with no business being in our league. Thus, I could get in my OHP workout without compromising my already compromised performance.