Week 4 – Madcow5x5 – Day 11C

Squats:

5 x 120 5 x 150 5 x 180 5 x 210 3 x 250 8 x 180

Not bad.  Didn't use the belt again.  Found myself leaning forward a bit on the 8 repper- felt it in the back afterwards.

Bench:

5 x 65 5 x 80 5 x 100 5 x 115 3 x 130 8 x 100

Still unstable on the lift.  Right side was working harder than the left on a few.  Nailed the lift on a few others.  One thing I changed up was to shrug and engage my traps.  This helped me tighten my lats immensely.  The hard part about pressing that I seem to keep messing up on is that when I try to squeeze my shoulder blades together, on the way up on the press, I seem to disengage the tightness in my right lat.

Rows:

5 x 65 5 x 85 5 x 100 5 x 115 3 x 130 8 x 100

Seemingly harder than before.  I've reduced my hip jerking movement so I can isolate the work to my upper back and biceps.  Controlled pull up, I think, is the best way to get the most out of this lift for what it's intended for.  Jerking the bar up to my chest seemed to take away from the lift.  This definitely made it a bit harder.  I also focused on squeezing my shoulder blades together.

Accessories:

Dips - 3x8xBW:  These were considerably easier than before.  No pain in the shoulders afterwards also.  As opposed to going straight down and up, I instead followed my shoulders down.  So, from the side I would lower myself until I reached about 90 degrees between my forearm and upperarm then press myself back up.

Barbell Curls - 2x8x40, 8x50:  Easier than the previous week's curls.  I think I might go ahead and do 40/50/50 next time.  Glad I'm progressing.  Woot big biceps!

Tricep Extensions - 8x35, 8x40, 8x45:  Easier than the previous week's extensions.  I'm going to up the weights on this as well and do 40/45/50 the next heavy day.

HIIT - 4-7-4-8-4-7-4-8 @ 1min:30sec. intervals:  I think the intervals I was doing before involved 1.5min:1min. intervals instead.