February 13th, Friday - Light Bench press, being careful

 13.02.2026

Feel nice right now. Slept subpar, CNS really tense, had a micro-nightmare specifically about my pecs and my connective tissues after watching that friggin second brother injury on the buff dudes youtube channel. I don't watch them but that video came into my feed and I wondered about my own 2019 injury and I might have been harboring some fear about my pecs and connective tissues having grown back wrong somehow. I had a really strained, heavily wound CNS and was even jumpy and reactive, I took two pain pills to deal with this back tweak, woke up earlier than I should have, did some stuff outside, finally took a shower again, slept for a little longer as my blood kept pulsing really loud all over my body. Now I feel somewhat okay. My family has been a little too reliant on the groceries that I purchase so I ran out and I ordered some more today. Thinking about buying some of that precursor amino acids to nitric oxide, cause I feel like I need it somehow. I'm not really a great fan of most supplements, but they do help psychologically and sometimes even factually do what they're claiming. Creatine does. I had a really nasty bit of canned herring. I know it's very normal food, but to my tongue it just tastes vile - mostly because it's too salty, it really disrupts my salt and water balance.

So, today we're doing sets of 5 in Bench press. All the same weighs, roughly the same but focusing a bit more on quality and movement. Five sets of five, somewhat flat progression in weights. Should be good, especially if I warm up decently well.

Workout

Warmup - pretty long and thorough, wall pushups and floor static holds and stretches

Bench press

20 - 50

100 for 6 a little too rough

120 for 5 okay, thumbless grip

140 for 5 on the first rep something crunched in my right pec where it's connected to shoulder. It worried me, so the rest of the reps were kinda bad although easy. I made a decision to step back today. I have enough ATP, but my body is not well-recovered, structurally. I've been eating poorly. Also I have a hit thumb knuckle rn, for five days now (it was kind of a problem on the last bench too) and I'm having some real unpleasant re-flexation after the set, cause of how much the thumb is involved in keeping the wrist structure solid.

100 for 5 - thumbless grip, medium-narrow - that's the solution for today, some controlled light weights, bringing my body to pay attention to the tissues

100 for 5 painful

100 for 5 better. Forced my thumb joint into a normal position - so it's squeezing the bar, kinda like a pinch grip, a in a way, on the bar. The muscle that's in between thumb and index finger. Adductor policis https://learnmuscles.com/glossary/muscles-of-the-anterior-hand-superficial-view/

So, I was thinking that's it for today. Could have had a better Bench tomorrow, but maybe it's good that I stuck to the light one today. More recovery. DL yesterday was pretty hard! I'm lowkey surprised I don't feel more ruined, heh.

Couldn't really stop though, so I did three more sets of wall pushups and then a few sets of pushup planks - just holding the position, trying different angles, assessing my tissues. It's good for abs and tricep and also for recovery.