Spotting and Loading

[SpotterLoader]

17.09.2023 (pm) - dynamic effort bench press

I had all the best intentions of this workout being at 6:30am at the gym but it ended up being at 4:30pm in my shed lol.
Gambled a bit by doing normal bench and I can’t set up the way I normally would because of my back but I’ll find out in the next couple of days whether some regular benching is a go.
Think I’ll stick to leaving my heavier day on the floor for now regardless as it’s a bit harder to “protect” myself at 100% loads vs 70% (give or take).

1A/ torso rotations
Landmine, 20kg barbell
4x10

1B/ face pull
Standing, cable, short rope attachment
10kg - 4x25

1C/ bench press
Reverse grip, feet up
20kg - 4x25

2/ bench press (1min)
Reverse grip, doubled mini bands (35kg-ish)
20kg - 1x10
30kg - 1x8
40kg - 6x6
Will be doing my speed work reverse grip indefinitely on the back of advice from Jimmy Kolb to try and help me get more out of my bench shirt (based on my raw bench my bench in poly should be 25kg higher). Definitely not as strong compared to my normal grip and I know my broken in mini bands are 35kg but these are fresh (and a different brand) and felt heavy as fuck compared to what I remember so I might re-weigh them at some point.

3/ bench press (3min)
Low incline, thumb from smooth
20kg - 1x6
30kg - 1x6
40kg - 1x6
50kg - 1x6
60kg - 1x6
40kg - 1x17

4A/ lat pulldown
Seated, cable, plated loaded, wide lat handle
20kg - 1x25
40kg - 3x20

4B/ tricep extension
On floor, SSB
25kg - 1x15
35kg - 3x12

5A/ bicep curl
Standing, cable, short rope attachment
15kg - 1x20, 2x15

5B/ shoulder raise
Standing, side, weight plates
5s - 3x20

6/ tricep pressdown
Micro band - 1xF (I lost count but I’d guess >100)

[SpotterLoader]

Also made myself a significantly over-engineered squat box from spare 18mm ply & framing timber I had lying around.
In building terms it has 3 sets of wall plates with 3 studs in each (I’d guess it weighs 20kg) so don’t think it’s going to break.
I was meant to cut in handles but forgot and the studs were in the way to do it after the fact so just nailed + glued a couple of strips and rounded the edge a bit.

[simo74]

Nice job on the box, how high is it ? I assume you will add mats to vary the height.

[SpotterLoader]

It’s 500 x 500 x 250mm
And yep. Got 4 x 500 x 500 x 50mm mats atm and I’ll grab a 25mm one once I find somewhere in Melb I can pick up from when I’m down there.

[SpotterLoader]

18.09.2023 (am) - lower body accessories

1/ stationary bike
1x12min

2/ hamstring curl (3min)
Seated, Hammer Strength select
40kg - 1x20
75kg - 3x10

3/ leg press (3min)
Single leg, 45*, plate loaded
40kg - 1x20
70kg - 4x12
Double leg
70kg - 1x70

4/ ab crunch (3min)
Lat pulldown machine, seated, long rope attachment
33kg(?) - 3x15

5/ deadlift (3min)
Single leg + hip airplane, DB
10kg - 3x6
Just trying to load my glute/hip as much as possible

6/ heel raise (3min)
Seated, plate loaded
50kg - 3x15

Had a good run this morning.
Apart from the dumbbells every machine vacated just as I was finishing the last set of the previous exercises. Not often that happens!
Amendment: until I needed to use the shower at the gym. Ended up having to duck back to the apartment and ended up rushing to get to work rather than ambling in.

[SpotterLoader]

20.09.2023 (am) - max effort upper
Back was very stiff this morning but I was sitting on hard ground for about 90min at the lake last night and slept in a different bed so probably explains it.

1A/ reverse hyper
10kg - 4x15

1B/ face pull
Standing, cable, short rope attachment
10kg - 4x25

1C/ push ups
On barbell at floor press height
4x15

2/ bench press (3min)
On floor pad, index on ring, 2 chains per side (30kg)
20kg - 1x6
30kg - 1x3
40kg - 1x3
50kg - 1x3
60kg - 1x3
70kg - 1x3
Large single ply Widowmaker
80kg - 1x3
90kg - 1x3
100kg - 1x3
107.5kg - 1x1
115kg - 1x1
Biggest issue seems to be preventing my elbows getting tucked in too much (very conscious that a fractured radius/ulna is a real possibility if I let this happen).
Not sure what sort of accessory exercises will help most with this (it’s also a leverage problem) so I’ll need to have a think, ask around and then experiment. It’ll be some sort of shoulder abduction exercise - just need to work out one that I can load enough and gets carryover.

4A/ row
Seated, cable, D-handle
20kg - 1x25
60kg - 3x10

4B/ tricep extension
Football bar, middle handles, on floor
25kg - 1x15
40kg - 3x8

5A/ ab rollout
Kneeling, single handles
3x12

5B/ bicep curl
EZ bar, pronated grip
20kg - 3x12

6/ shoulder raise (3min)
Side, weight plates, elbows at 90*
5s - 1x20
2.5s - 1x35
1.25s - 1x50
Until I think of a better exercise I’m just going to flog shoulder raises and add a bit of general mass to my delts.

[SpotterLoader]

22.09.2023 (am) - dynamic effort lower

No volleyball last night because of school holidays (which I’m not complaining about atm)

1A/ squat
4x25

1B/ deadlift
Landmine
20kg - 4x15
Forgot how much these hit glutes/hams. Have only ever used them as a warm up previously but might throw them into my accessories a bit more often.

1C/ ab crunch
Seated, cable, short rope attachment
20kg - 4x25

2/ depth drop jump (2min)
25cm - 4x4
I like to try and keep some sort of jumping or sprinting into my programs but these were probs a bit too much to jump straight into (no pun intended) after a layoff.

3/ squat (2min)
Bow bar, 40cm box
20kg - 1x10
30kg - 8x5

4/ deadlift (2min)
Close stance, pin 3
20kg - 1x20
40kg - 1x15
60kg - 1x10
70kg - 5x5

5/ good morning (3min)
Seated (40cm box), safety squat bar
25kg - 1x15
35kg - 3x12

6/ shoulder shrug (3min)
Standing, cable, straight handle attachment
40kg - 3x20
Kinda feel like seated good mornings and shrugs are a bit superfluous as they’re both training the same thing (upper back to help start position of deadlift + holding position in squat). My start doing my lat pulldowns on Fridays then on Sundays hit rear delts a bit harder but I’ll play around a bit and find out what works.

[SpotterLoader]

23.09.2023 (am) - 40 minute kayak

So technically I only paddled for about 40 minutes all up.
But I capsized on my way out and couldn’t get back in so ended up swimming a good 20+ minutes to get to land.
I set off at about 09:45 and got back to where I started around 11:45 so idk where the missing time went.
Copped some scratches for my troubles.

[SpotterLoader]

24.09.2023 (pm) - dynamic effort upper
Similar to last week - had planned on going in the morning then got side tracked (admittedly not my fault this time) and ends up going around 5pm!

1A/ reverse hyper
10kg - 4x15

1B/ face pull
Standing, cable, short rope attachment
10kg - 4x25

1C/ push ups
barbell at bench height
4x25

2/ bench press (1min)
Reverse grip, doubled mini bands (35kg-ish)
20kg - 1x10
30kg - 1x8
40kg - 6x6
Maintained bar speed much better than last week.

Reverse grip speed bench

3/ bench press (3min)
Low incline, thumb from smooth
20kg - 1x6
30kg - 1x6
40kg - 1x6
50kg - 1x6
57.5kg - 1x6
62.5kg - 1x6
40kg - 1x19

4A/ lat pulldown
Seated, cable, plated loaded, wide lat handle
20kg - 1x25
50kg - 1x17, 1x15, 1x10

4B/ tricep extension
On floor, SSB
25kg - 1x15
40kg - 1x11, 1x10, 1x8

5A/ bicep curl
Standing, cable, short rope attachment
20kg - 1x15, 1x11, 1x10

5B/ shoulder raise
Standing, side, weight plates
5s - 3x15

6/ loaded hamstring stretch
Lying, band
Green - 1x3 min/side

[SpotterLoader]

Skated down to the shops after which I regretted once I got out of range of all the lighting around the hospital