June 29th - A lovely overhead session, front rack reachieved

 29.06.2026

I feel decent today. Slept well, although I was kinda feeling uncomfortable and waking up all the time. I keep wondering if it's about my nose - I have stopped abusing the nasal spray but it occasionally flares up still. I had a nice breakfast, leftover vegetables and meat from yesterday, then a few minor snacks. Moderate nutrition. Had one conventional - it hit me nice and right, that feeling when your face gets all tense and you think in a forward flow. Then I read "Fools Die" a little - can't help but marvel how easy it feels to read him - and had an ice cream sundae and another coffee. Interesting tidbit - I've been practicing adding snacks during coffee and having some carb-based stuff during the workout - after yesterday I'm not so sure it's such a bright idea for me. No, I wanna suppress the stomach digestion during the workout, that helps me better.

Workout

Warmup - long, fun with the parallel handles - variations of light pushups, pike pushups, foot and leg stretches, all sorts of weird stuff. As well as the usual overhead warmup - stick, "low bar" holds with the PVC pipe, behind the head stretches.

Overhead press, pushpress, high pulls and power cleans

20 kg - 2 sets

43 kg - 1 set

63 kg - 1 set

On 63 and 43 I had a lot of fun doing muscle pulls with some back power added - not exactly power cleans, just the "hinge", although I think I did a couple that are "cleans", jumping and catching; high pulls, muscle cleans, overhead presses all in one long sequence, muscle snatches / viper presses

73 - 3 presses, 3 pushpresses, 2 separate front squats, 3 back squats - the normal

93 - 2 sets of that (there might be some minor inaccuracies, but I hope you understand that's a given)

I really wanted to re-achieve the full front rack. I wasn't there yet. Amidst all of this I sprinked in back and lat stretches. Hands and forearms are pretty strained but rather tolerable.

What really helps is "not thinking" when I unrack the bar. Somehow I manage to do it right.

93 - 3 presses from the scuffed front rack 😀 But a full one - bar resting on the clavicle / shoulders. THEN, after a short break

103 - 3 pushpresses, also pretty scuffed but the front rack is there. Then 1 front squat - tough, mostly a tiptoe squat - then 3 squats that made me feel good.

103 - 3 presses, really ugly but the rack is sort of there. Then -

113 - 3 pushpresses, 1 front squat with my hands popping out in the end, and 3 nice back squats

113 - 2 presses, really nice if a little wacky, then -

118 - 3 pushpresses, not bad but some ugliness, side-wise

Not sure if I did squat here - I probably did, 3 reps

120,5 - 3 pushpresses - nice, really happy, better impulse but the movement isn't greatly smooth, then 3 squats

I thought I was done with PP and I'd just do more Squat and I happily went upstairs and watched the recordings I made; I was happy overall but it crept and realized I need to do another one.

120,5 - 3 pushpresses, better! I trusted my instincts and gripped the bar so there's "less weight" on the right and it turned out fine. A front rack was nice too!

143 - 3 squats, kinda a little wacky for my hip joints but I felt better when squatted deeper. I feel like there's a lot of tension in your joints when you do the high-bar squat but do it only to "powerlifting depth"

Went upstairs for a tiny break. Before 140 on squat I was considering doing something pretty big but I had to stop myself cause I'm factually exhausted - it's been more than three hours since I started my warmups, and I'm getting close to cramping. But I still have that "something" I wanna push 😁

163 - 5 squats in wraps which I put on kinda lackadaiscially - under knee and on the knee but there wasn't really enough to put on top of the knee - and pulled the knee sleeves on top of them. I was wondering what I wanted to do, either three or ten 😁 I took quite a pause after 3 - they were easy but energy is nearly out. Did two more and that was enough even though I felt a little silly for wishing to do ten after all this (and also feeling kinda lazy even though that would likely have been too much).

You wanna dedicate some time to just squats themselves. Today they all got nicely mixed with my overhead lifts.

RPotD - Catharus ustulatus