Week1 – Day1A

Weight: 179.0

Squats:  5x5x75

Bench:  5x5x55

Rows: 5x5x70

Dips: 6/2/2

Paused Bench Press: 3x5x45 Plank: 3x30 sec

It's only been about a month since I've last visited the gym, but feels like longer. My health, I feel, has definitely taken steps backward in the last two months or so. In preparation for picking up where I dropped off with the StrongLifts routine, I decided to bite the bullet and make the in-app purchase in the StrongLifts5x5 mobile app. $10 may seem like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on a mobile app for pretty much everyone who has a smartphone. But, nonetheless, I impulsively took dive anyway because, to be honest, my experience with the app since it's redesign has been extremely pleasant. The design and snappiness of it all is really a mark of a well built piece of software and tremendous kudos to the developer(s) who made it.

Anyway, back to the real stuff, the lifts. I was feeling pretty...ordinary going into the lifts. I didn't think much of them. The bar didn't feel all too heavy which was a pleasant surprise. First thing I noticed unracking the bar for the squat was that I had no shoulder pain despite the fact that I decided to start with a pretty narrow grip. Bar was not that far down so definitely less torque on the shoulder perhaps. Another thing I did differently was to do band resistance exercises on the right arm. The same ones I performed while doing rehab on my right shoulder a year ago. External rotation with arm abducted 90 degress, internal rotation, external rotation.

Bench was really easy, had a fairly narrow grip, tried to keep the forearms perpendicular to the ground.

Rows were very easy as well, pulled the bar really fast.

Dips weren't that bad, shoulders didn't feel bad either, certainly some strain present. Paused bench presses were pretty easy as well. I think this well help me strengthen and balance my bench pressing.

Planks were interesting. Fatigued pretty quickly and started shaking a lot towards the end of the last rep of the plank.