Week6 - Day13B

Squats:  3x5xBar + 5x65 + 3x85 + 5x5x105** ***Seated Plate Raises:  3x10x25 *Seated Lateral Raise:  3x10x10 **Seated DB Shrug + Clean + Half Press:  3x10x10 Deadlift:  3x95 + 2x115 + 2x135 + 5×155

Standing BB Curls:  10x40** Preacher EZ Bar Curls:  10x40 **DB Fly:  10x10 Incline DB Press:  10x30 + 2x10x35

Duration:  1 hour

Weight:  175.6 lbs

will add notes later

OK!  So, yesterday's session was good.  When doing squats, I payed particular attention to my grip à la the following video by Mark Rippetoe: [vimeo http://vimeo.com/30763907]

The grip was definitely still bothersome to the shoulder.  What I've been doing to alleviate the pain in the shoulder was to have some flexion in my wrist.  But, for the purposes of ensuring proper form, I sucked up the small bit of pain and straightened my wrists out.  Definitely noticed a big difference in the tightness of my upper back.  Shoulder shockers weren't bad.  The upper back work from the Squats definitely fatigued my shoulders a bit.  The work is definitely getting easier, but I don't like sticking to the same weights over and over.  For the routine itself, I think I want to work my way up to 45 plates.  Luckily, the gym also carries 35 lb weights, so I might increase the weight soon.  Increasing the weight on the dumbbell portions is a bit intense, I'll have to see if there are 2.5 lb increment dumbbells.  Going from 10 to 15 lbs for the lateral raises and shrug+clean+half press is a pretty big jump, so perhaps 10 to 12.5 wouldn't be as bad.  Deadlifts were good, getting up there in weight!  I don't like jumping into the top set of these lifts especially once the deadlift starts getting very heavy.  Squats, as Mehdi says, already hits some of the muscle groups that the deadlifts works on, but for my own safety, I still did some warm-up reps with lighter weights, progressing up to the top weight.  The StrongLifts program has always prescribed a single set of 5 reps for Deadlifts and I can definitely understand the methodology behind this when thinking about how fast weights progress.  At the point that one starts doing close to maximal effort weights, doing 5 sets of 5 reps of Deadlifts would be murder!  Especially after 5x5 of near maximal effort squats!  I can remember when I was just completely spent and drained during these workout sessions later in the program in the past.

I increased weights on accessories.  The bicep curls went from 30 to 40.  And instead of the usual tricep isolation, I did some chest isolation with db fly and incline db press.  The inclinde db presses were done with heavier weights I've done previously, going from 20 to 30/35 lbs.  35s were heavy, but I would say definitely not that close to maximal effort.