Vincent (5/13 - 5/16)

5/13

BW: 185 (actually 183)

Chins: 277.5 (+92.5) x 5

Press: 115: 7x5

Face Pulls: 55: 8x8

Back Extension: 3x8

Split-Squat: 60, 5x5

Curls: 70: 10, 9, 8

5/15

BW: 187.5

Chins: 252.5 (+65), 5x5

Press: 125: 8x4

Face Pulls: 55: 6x10, 20

Back Extension: 3x10

5/16

Press: 130: 10x3

Face Pulls: 55: 10x12

Back Extension: 2x13

Split Squat: 80: 5x5

Curls: 70: 3x10

Comment:

The back pain+inflammation has subsided significantly. The pain is now fairly localized to my right SI joint. Hamstring flexibility is also coming back. There is not much pain in my daily life, just occasional stiffness, but I still can't get into certain positions painlessly.

I tried on 5/15 some really light deadlifting (95 lb) but I get pain in the start position, again right at the SI joint.

Today (5/16) I did a few bodyweight and light (20 lb) goblet squats. Those were almost pain-free, but the joint does twinge a bit at the bottom. I think in a couple of weeks I should be pretty much 100% to squat.

Smolov jr applied to pressing is going roughly as it did as when I did it for chins and bench. The first day was harder than I expected and each subsequent day got easier. Next week calls for +10 lb to each of these sets.

The face pulls are supersetted with the sets of pressing. Apparently this is good for the shoulders. Although I'm not trying to increase these in particular, they are getting much stronger than they were so I guess this will probably balance my shoulders or something. I'll hit sets of 15 or so then go up in weight.

Chins I will most likely keep at the same weight the next two weeks; the emphasis those weeks will be on pressing. I like the high volume. My shoulders right now feel pretty good and are handling the volume well.

I've been restricting the curl progress to about 5 lb per month at most in order to avoid tendonitis. This seems to have been working well. Long term I wanna curl a plate!

I think the split squats are good for patching up a weak point meaning my legs. Strangely I find these harder than the overestimated equivalent for back squats: 80lb split squats are harder for me than a 160 lb back squat. I also found these surprisingly hard on the grip.

Also eating a lot of meat, around 1-2 lb a day. Introduced a lot of veggies because I got a lot of them frozen at costco. I never really ate them much before because they are annoying to buy often if not frozen.

I recently had the idea for high-rep squatting milestones/challenges: 20 reps at some number of plates. So I might set 225x20 as a short term goal and 315x20 as a long term one.