Oct 03 and 05 - OHP, recovering, small PR

 03.10.2024

A bit of an oldschool room workout

Rubber lat stretches and pulls - figuring out my newly developed weak points, first light rubber then heavy

Rings on the pullup bar - stretches while kneeling and sitting on the floor

Ring pullups, angled about 40 degrees (supine, feet on the floor/in the wall) - 2 sets of 15 - nice, not too difficult, getting in a better shape

Conventional pullups on a bar, but with some added full stretch (including scapulae) - 6 sets of 4 - a lot of stretch. I tried going a little bit faster (between sets) since I'm doing so few reps. I flex my abs a little bit in the bottom and that stretches my lats even more. And I don't just mean lats, I mean all the muscles that work in pullups directly. Feels nice, like I am fixing my sides. I used to do a lot of hangs in Summer 2020. I also injured my right lat a little, but that was cause of parallel grip pullups and my unevenness.

Don't really wanna do anything for my legs. Perhaps we shall add it later, on some other day. We'll be abstaining from heavy DLs and heavy squats until early November. Then we'll see if we managed to work through our issues.

Neck extensions with the rubber, in the head harness - 3 sets, different angles and ranges

16 kg kettlebell - lifts off the mattress, short range, neck in stiff position (not extensions) - 2 sets

Honestly, feels amazing not having my neck hurt anymore.

05.10.2024

Yesterday was the first day without coffee in a while. It was a good day. And today I'm already buzzing. I ended up waking up early, couldn't sleep. Now I'm having a conventional pot-brewed coffee.

Trying to edit old parts of the book, written over a year ago... Not too simple.

OHP session 10 - 5 sets of 4 with 80%. So, I'm thinking of doing 90-98. Reasonable? I'd hope so. In fact, I can see it being a fairly easy, quick workout.

Workout

Warmup - very thorough

Curious observation - the more time you take warming up the less you feel like you need it (i.e. you feel less fragile at the start of your workout), then you take less time and end up feeling like you do need it, and then you increase the amount of warmup some more. And no one is quite safe from the frailty of the human mind, especially so if they think they are, he he.

Overhead press

20 - 50 - 70 okay

95 for 4 very nice, both sort of easy and hard at the same time since it was all very fast

98 for 4 - I got confused about basic physics and put more weight on my left side, which is the opposite of what I need

98 for 4 better, listening to Manowar, rebuilding a playlist

98 for 10 lovely! I imagined I was gonna do 12 - cause, frankly, I COULD believe that I can do this weight for this many reps, so I wasn't even lying to myself EVEN THOUGH I aimed for just 10 reps. Some reps were kinda lame, perhaps better than on Monday, but the last was definitely a good one with the fullest lockout, grunting-screaming and holding it on top! Thank God, Hallelujah!
BTW I can definitely say it's a PR for the season xD

53 for 8 super explosive to work off that CNS cream 😁

Kinda still wanna do more stuff (squats?).

By the way, I was doing a lot of pullup bar hangs and hanging side twists and side bends. I got an unpleasant callus on my scar and it feels a little weird, like I'm afraid I'm gonna tear off that post-surgery scar of mine. A little weird. You gotta teach yourself not to pick at your scabs, that's what adults do. Although you could argue it is natural, but it's not a scab and it's also a very specific type of scar. Hmm. Sounds like sensitive information, doesn't it? But it's not really so, he he.

Some more stretching with the rubber - squat stretching, hangign onto the rubber band as I move through various joint-stretched positions in full squat.

Squat 53 for about 8 or more - feeling it. It's painful in my side. Still, something is wrong.

20 kg bar - a weird exercise, basically side bends/twists. Partial squat and full squat and touching the floor with one side of the barbell, kinda like a part of Steinborn squats. Oh man, imagine if I tried doing Steinborn squats now, with my issues. heck, maybe I'll get to it eventually. Definitely can do it with a light weight, maybe even up to 100 without much pain. By the way, do you know I pressed 98 for 10 today even though it was supposed to be just a set of 4 reps, as if it was 80% of my max? Heck yeah, I did do that, pure mogging 😎 Well, let's be honest, I've been using 120 as my max and I've gotten back into a better shape so now it's not really a valid max, even for superstrict moves... Provided I can stay in a good shape. I'd so love it if I managed to avoid slurping up crazy caffeine today. How did I do it for so long? Well, maybe I should find something else I can focus on. After all, coffee has not been doing the same thing it used to do back in the day. It stimulates like it's playing a cello smoothly with an oiled fiddlestick, and back in the day it used to stimulate me like a quick groove on a ride cymbal, so different! Yeah, you know I love this kind of similes.

I fished out the old wrist hooks from my drawer. I've been doign a lot of hangs/abs flexes for stretching, not as worried about my scar with these wrist hooks. My ribs (serratus anterior) got real crampy and I relaxed it with some squatting shoulder back-and-forth rubbel pulls and side twists from that same position. Stretching for legs and upper body, feeling in control, not tearing anything or causing any pain... Cept for cramps of course 😁