November 25th, Tuesday - Rare heavy singles, Bench PRs, some grip

 25.11.2025

Rewatching old videos before 2016, before my conscript service - man, I was explosive as heck. I will get it back. How? In everything. Try doing every little thing fast af. Might be contradicting some of my ideas regarding acceleration - at first. Maybe this explosiveness is a little overrated... Maybe not. All I know is I want it back.

This is the video that made me think it. 11 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpzK8L9uMfY

I still have my training logs from the old forum in a txt file buried on my old laptop... Gotta try and fish it out.

I really, really wanted to press a big weight back then. Prove myself. Now I want slightly different things. Slightly.

***

You know what I realized? I really just never do actual heavy singles anymore. And no, do not confuse that with maxing out. I'm talking about heavy singles. I mean, I sort of end up doign them sometimes when I wanna do doubles lol. But I never intentionally work on single-rep lifts. Cause I can usually lift 90% of whatever my max is for more than one rep. And 90% is heavy, one way or another. So what if I tried that? What if I tried to work up to a few sets? Also, I **definitely** can takes SHORTER breaks.

I've been loading up my legs a lot with all the weird rehab exercises. But due to my ankle injury squat has ended up leaving my repertoire for the moment. And I was lifting really well in September. A grape of wrath, that ankle! Injured it stupidly, added to injury with the tourniquet - well, that wasn't completely stupid. Re-injured it in another wrath event, then proceeded to roll it a few more times for good measure. Hilarity. I hope I'm not doing it unconsciously.

Workout

Bench

20 - 70 - 70 for 10

100 for 10 wrists a little stiff. Didn't do much upstairs warmup.

120 for 5

153 for 1 nice, no wrist pain

153 for 1 easy, short break after this one

163 for 1 nice, not heavy

163 for 1 nice, then short break

168 for 1 - nice, PR+5 kgs 😀 And that's me just doing volume! It was a medium-speed rep, no pause, just good ol' direction reversal.

168 for 1 nice, easier; short break after

170,5 for 1 - very good, powerful but not easy 😀 PR +2.5 kgs 😁😁 And still a part of volume training. So good, this actual real PR! And it's not a maxout, mind you. I don't think I've successfully maxed out in ages. Maybe in 2022 when I did my first ever 280 DL I managed it. 293 I did on accident, inspired (July this year). Recently I've done it for a faux double - not bad.

170,5 for 1 nice

173 for 1 - nice, PR +2.5 kgs 😁 Or one big defacto 10 kg PR 😁😁

Enjoyed it, started grooving to music. I wanted to take a longer break here, since it's not even a couple singles but a trio at this point, so I started cooking and got my hands wet and fat; the amount of chalk I applied was insufficient for good grip and my player died too, but I figured I can still do it cause I feel it

173 for 1 - you could say it's a volume PR😉 It was really hard, slow grind. Not the hardest, but really hard - yet powerful; I felt confident throughout the whole press! I even held it on straight arms for a little while and then racked it. I have my rack set very low all day today, so that there is absolutely minimal distance between it and straight arms on bench. My right hand was sliding, real greasy, but I finished the press, so good 😀

173 for 1 - not bad, overall it felt easier but after a somewhat longer break I reckon some of my tissues had got hardened so I did not lock out my elbows past 180 (bone feeling, you know, complete elbow lockout that is strong but can break elbow). That triggered me a little but I managed to calm myself and decided this was enough heavy volume. But I had to rectify it somehow -

123 for 5 - making sure it's fully bone-locked out, felt good. Definitely feeling some fatigue here!

Unloaded the plates. No pinching. Haven't been able to find my dynamometer recently. I have vague memories of putting it in the box; let me check.

Nope, not there. Found lounging beside Vulcan gripper in the bottom drawer. Feeling like doing some grip. I warmed up but doing CoC1 for a rep and hold, then Vulcan gripper rep and hold only with one hand - the left. I wanna see if it helps or not with warmup. Is one enough or do you need more?

I got 90, maybe 91 with the right, hand a little greasy. 10 kilos less with the left. I think extra warmup might have helped a tiny bit, cause usually they're further apart.

Some more Vulcan closes, just 1-1 chrome spring. Old one, really old, this thing. Another dynamometer squeeze - 88 right, 78-79 left. My left hand is a little less greasy, heh. Silly of me to do it with just *leftover chalk* on my hands but I can't be bothered!

Squeezed some CoC2.5; I gotta admit I'm pretty out of shape with the grippers. Heck, at least I've been setting OHG prs! That matters just a little more.

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