Week12 - Day32A - Blind Spot

Weight:  183.4 lbs Duration:  12:15 - 1:20 ~ 1hr 5min.

Driving into work this morning and I turned my head over my left shoulder to check my blind spot and bam.  I felt a sudden twinge in my neck and immediately felt a lot of pressure at the base of my neck on the left side.  Turning my head a bit here and there was very bothersome.  The pressure has subsided over time, but as of writing this right now, some 6 hours later and the neck is still feeling not so great.  Nonetheless, I still went to the gym and made sure to take it easy.  Low back strain is doesn't feel as aggravated as on Wednesday.  I made sure to invest some more time in the warm-ups to get me loose.  Did additional parts of the Agile 8 hip mobility warm-up routine, specifically, mountain climbers and groiners.  These usually get the heart rate up and allows me to break a slight sweat.  I did these on top of the static hip flexor stretches aka lunges/warrior poses and the fire hydrants.  I also started the warm-up with 3 sets of 30 sec. jump rope to get the blood flowing.

Squats:  3x5xBar + 5x95 + 3x115 + 3x135 + 3x3x155

Did 3 sets of empty bar good mornings before I even did the 3 sets of empty bar squats.  The low back was working a lot during these, not sure why.  I narrowed my stance a bit.  I think too wide a stance is causing me to round the low back in the hole, especially on reps where I go below parallel.  For now, I'm going to try and keep it to squatting to parallel.  The narrow stance was a bit more comfortable for sure.  I didn't work to my top set of 195 and instead did a 3x3 on the top set to give myself some rest.

Bench:  3x10xBar + 5x65 + 5x85 + 3x100 + 5x5x120

These felt better, but I felt my shoulders were working a bit more than usual.  I shrugged and drove through my feet on the last set as I was pretty fatigued at this point.  Again, I'm not pressing to full extension and instead focused on maintaining the squeeze in my shoulder blades.

Rows:  5x65 + 3x85 + 1x105 + 5x5x135

The top set felt pretty heavy.  I was a bit worried here with my neck strain and all, but the lift didn't aggravate it anymore, so that was good.  I was definitely jerking a bit on the last few reps.

Accessories:** **Preacher Curls: 10x50 Incline BB Bench: 10xBar + 10x65 + 10x85 Standing EZ Bar Curls: 10x40 Tricep Extensions: 10x50 Seated DB Curls: 10x25 Dips: 7/4/2

The EZ bar curls were a lot easier today.  Tricep extensions weren't bad- definitely felt more comfortable resistance compared to the really light 40lbs.  The dips felt very strong, but I got fatigued very easily.