Thursday 2021-02-11
Didn’t train yesterday, as I didn’t have it in me to exhibit the energy necessary to get through the intended session. Felt the same way about the session today, and to add insult to injury even more joints than usual were expressing their discontent. Left shoulder felt unstable, just moving it through space. Tried going for long walks but didn’t scratch the itch. Wanted to do “something”. Decided to swap out my intended session then, as there is some back work in the intended session that might affect my deadlifts poorly. This implies that I’m remaining optimistic that I’ll deadlift tomorrow. Naivety?
Think my body is rioting because of pent up stress, it’s been affecting my sleep for weeks. Wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts racing, and pre-finger injury my forearms would be engorged as I’d be sleeping with flexed fists. Probably what caused the pulley to strain eventually, and why my elbows are still problematic.
Weight trend positive at least, so it isn’t that. Thankfully.
With all my joint stuff I was a bit inspired to look more closely at omni-reps, so I took a stab at revamping an old workout from the Superhero Program into OTCS style. RPE does not remain a tool that I wield very well. My intent was to do two prep sets on each exercise but I very quickly found my work weights. And, pushed a bit to hard here and there. The only RPE numbers of any legitimacy here are the 9s and 9.5s. Maybe they are 10s.
But, to be fair to myself, there were a lot of people training amongst the dumbbells, sometimes there weren’t any suitable dums to choose.
Did get to play with an idea I had been mulling over for my chest though. If I can’t do normal style reps on most horizontal pushing maybe I can increase the difficulty substantially to get work in without tipping my shoulder into a compromised position. I was very happy with the first exercise, the latter two weren’t great. But I see this could be a thought-pattern I bring with me into my assistance. Here I did alternating reps, but I could also imagine Isometric Pre-Fatigue having the same type of utility → forcing the work weight down. The alternating reps were something I saw The Rock do.
Chest/Biceps OTCS-style
Here’s the superhero workout that I used as my base (CTs design)
Workout D (Chest/Back)
A1. Incline bench press 3 x 6-8 reps
A2. Bent over barbell rowing 3 x 6-8 reps
B1. Flat dumbbell bench press 3 x 10-12 reps
B2. Lat pulldown 3 x 10-12 reps
C1. Decline bench press 3 x 12-15 reps
C2. Seated rowing 3 x 12-15 reps
And here’s what I arrived at (ecc/conc/iso). Goal for the A series was 3 work sets but ended up doing 4.
| A1. Incline DB Press | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | Alternating Reps | ||
| Reps | 8-10 reps | Rest Period | 90 sec | ||
| Notes: | Stay in the bottom position with one hand and perform the press with the other. Alternate. 8-10 reps per hand. Use normal reps (slow ecc) for preparation sets | ||||
| Set | 1 (prep) | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Reps | 15 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 8 |
| RPE | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9.5 |
| Weight | 10 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 18 |
| A2. Incline DB Curl | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | 6s eccentric | ||
| Reps | 8-10 reps | Rest Period | 90 sec | ||
| Set | 1 (prep) | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Reps | 6 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| RPE | 6 | 7 | 8-9 | 8-9 | 8-9 |
| Weight | 10 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| B1. Flat Dumbbell Press | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | 3010 | |
| Reps | 15-12-10 reps | Rest Period | 90 sec | |
| Set | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Reps | 15 | 12 | 10 | |
| RPE | 9 | 9 | 9.5 | |
| Weight | 18 | 20 | 22 |
| B2. DB Hammer Curl | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | 3010 | |
| Reps | 15-12-10 reps | Rest Period | 90 sec | |
| Set | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Reps | 15 | 11 | 10 | |
| RPE | 8 | 10 | 9 | |
| Weight | 10 | 14 | 14 |
| C1. Cable Cross-over | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | Stato-dynamic | |
| Reps | 8 | Rest Period | 90 sec | |
| Notes: | Hold peak contraction for 4 seconds | |||
| Set | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Reps | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| RPE | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| Weight | 6.25 | 6.25 | 6.25 |
| C2. Rope Curl | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sets | 3 | Tempo/Method | Stato-dynamic | |
| Reps | 8 | Rest Period | 90 sec | |
| Notes: | Hold peak contraction for 4 seconds | |||
| Set | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Reps | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| RPE | 8 | 9 | 9 | |
| Weight | 13.75 | 13.75 | 11.25 |