Week 3 - Day 7A
Had a fairly sickly day today- didn't feel well all day, had no appetite and moreover I developed a headache, pounding in my left side of the head by the time I got back home from work. Popped a Tylenol and went to the gym anyway and surprise, surprise...headache gone afterwards and felt much better. My diagnosis of my condition for the day is that I didn't keep myself hydrated throughout the day especially after downing a protein shake in the morning.
Pretty easy workout today. Pain in the lower back subsided when doing Squats today. I focused on maintaining strict form to avoid hurting myself any further. Normally, I would go quite a bit lower than parallel when performing squats. Today, I only went down to parallel and made sure that my rear end was going up in unison with my shoulders to avoid doing semi-Goodmornings. In addition, I also made sure to suck in air into my stomach and keep my abs tight. I read somewhere to imagine pushing the floor apart with my feet. This helped with activating the glutes and keeping my core tight.
Bench is still pretty light. Noticed that my powerlifter arch in the back has carried over. I'm trying to perform the benches with a flat back to avoid excessive arching of my back, but it seems that my body defaults to having a minor arch no matter what I do. In addition to this, when I tighten my upperback, my back naturally arches. Between each set, I performed a PNF stretch bending over with my head between my legs and stretching my arms out to stretch my lower back out more.
Rows were light, but painful. I need to research more into why I'm developing back pain from performing Barbell Rows. Currently, I'm maintaining a very strict form to avoid cheating by jerking and/or using hip drive to pull the weight up.
Warmups:
2 x 10 Leg swings
2 x 30 sec. static Squat stretch
2 x 15 sec. Doorway pec stretch
Squats:
5 x Bar
3 x 95
5 x 5 x 125
Bench:
5 x Bar
3 x 65
5 x 5 x 85
Rows:
5 x 5 x 85
PWO Stretches:
2 x 15 sec. warrior lunge + twist
2 x 15 sec. butterfly