Frank (10/18): RTS Volume, Bench

Good grief. So much volume.

Bench Press: 5, 5, 5, 4, 3 @ 245
I came in already a little fatigued. The workout yesterday was pretty tiring, almost worse than Smolov, really. I'm considering whether to try to beat my reps or do 6x4/6x3 next week.

Pause Bench (3 second pause): 5x5@185
I started off with a really light weight because (1) I was fatigued from benching already and (2) I've never used such a large pause before. I'm su rprised at how much of a difference it makes. The first few sets were easy, but the last two were close things.

Cable Row: 4x8@170
Easy. The weight was probably too light, but I needed the break. RTS says to do this last, but I bumped it up one because there was no way I was going to be able to do another pressing movement without at least a half hour of rest.

Military Press: 8, 7, 5, 4 @ 135
I think I'll have to stand with Nate here in the sucky shoulders club. To our defense, I think it's the sheer volume of work rather than weak shoulders that made this suck so much. 4x8@135 shouldn't be this hard.

Some thoughts:
RTS has a lot of volume and many sets at high percentages of my max. I did a total of 10 sets of benching today, which is way more than I've ever done, and 14 sets of some sort of pressing movement, which, again, is more than I've ever done. Also, my elbows were acting up toward the last few sets of flat benching. I think I may substitute pause benching with pause dumbbell benching to spare my joints next week.