August 24th - Nice Bench, some neck work

 24.08.2025

Lovely day. Not even nice, lovely. Woke up way too early after feeling sickly yesterday. I got some sort of mini-cold, it feels like, but also it's possible it was just in my head. Also it's possible that the heavy CNS load from DL impacted me. Been eating mostly just meat, ground meat. Had a coffee around 10 am today and knocked me the heck out. Fell asleep, woke up at 1 pm energized. Started having more coffee. This time it didn't knock me out. Had fun, read Suttree, a lot of fun. Have I mentioned I finished House of Leaves? This book is more sad than anything. Not depressing, just sad - you allow yourself to relate to characters. Not very immersive, but good enough to feel something. Sadly not as mysterious as I hoped. Too many "bright spots", not enough shadowplay. Not enough confusion. But it is raw, which is good. It's a gen x book.

Workout

Warmup - some, doing the gymnastic-style variations of pushups... I'm realizing now that there's a reason why narrow grip bench is for tricep. Not because it's narrow, no. Because the elbows are close to body. It's easy, but it's not powerful.

Bench

20 - 60

110 for 10 with rubbers (yellow light ones, they take off 8 kg on chest)

110 for 3 without

130 for 3 rubbers

130 for 3 normal

140 for 3 rubbers

140 for 3 normal

150 for 3 rubbers - starting to get sort of hard

150 for 3 nice, very easy (without rubbers)

160 for 3 with rubbers - nice, but hard

160 for 2 and 1 after a break - not bad, a small PR 😁 (No rubbers here) The best before was 158 for 3. The "third" rep that I've done was really confident. I pressed to near lockout and almost just sort of held it there before locking out to complete elbow extension. My flexibility is better - all the straight arm holds worked. Hallelujah!

And let's be real, I'm doing sort of a big volume today. I need to do more. Just for some solidifying.

140 for 5 with GREEN reverse bands - they take off way too much in this manner. Was fun to try!

90 for 5 with yellow rubbers - tissues starting to give up, some kind of minor stretch in my left forearm

That's it. Enjoyed manipulating the plates off of the bar with my pinch grip. I think I'll do some super light stuff for my shoulders. I need to get my bench to a good point and get back to PP. We're a couple steps away from a good bench. But way closer than ever before.

L-flys

2 kg dbs - 2 sets of 20+ reps

6 kg dbs - 2 sets of 20 reps

Neck extensions

1 set bw

16 kg in heck harness - 2 sets of 10

It's been ages since I've trained my neck seriously. I used to do easy extensions with 32 kgs. And I used to do then weight in my teeth. It's just such an unimportant thing, isn't it? Is it until it isn't, unexpectedly. It's important to know your priorities and have enough discipline for small things like that.

Neck curls - 1 set BW - well, the front of my neck is in a slightly better shape, it feels like. Gives me a headache, all that neck work. Need to overcome it somehow.

RPotD - El Pont Nou, aqüeducte, Sant Pere de Riudebitlles