Week 5 – Madcow5x5 – Day 14C
11 Feb 2012Weight: 177.4 Body Fat: 13.8%
It's been about 4 weeks since I've started tracking my weight and my body fat percentage. It doesn't seem like I'm moving much. Arms feel a bit bigger than before. I think accessories can attribute to this. Legs feel pretty much the same, pretty thick and beefy (makes it really hard to use the calipers). I've also started using Livestrong's MyPlate feature where I can lookup and record what I've eaten, etc. It's much nicer than fitday, another website I used a long time ago when counting calories. From the looks of my food intake from this past week, it seems like I'm hovering around ~2000-2200 cals per day. Although, I did notice that I was sort of getting away with a bit too much carbs and not enough protein.
Squats:
5 x 125 5 x 155 5 x 190 5 x 220 3 x 255 (belt) 8 x 190
These weren't bad at all. The triple was actually not too bad, definitely tough getting out of the hole. I wish I could have recorded, but unfortunately, my camera's SD card ran out of memory ('effing bummer). I did notice on my earlier sets though that going too deep caused my back to round and I felt the strain on my lower back. I remedied this with the remaining sets and no back pain! This definitely helped me out on the 8 repper. Usually after performing the last 8 rep set, my back feels very strained. I made sure that I rested adequately before doing the last set and making sure to keep everything tight so as to avoid cranking the weight from the lower back.
Bench:
5 x 65 5 x 85 5 x 100 5 x 115 3 x 135 8 x 100
Not too bad. Experimented with a bit of a wider grip than last week and it sort of helped. On the way down I had my elbows fairly close to my body and then when I pressed up, I flared them. I also noticed that when squeezing my glutes and tucking my feet underneath me that I engaged my core a lot and really made my upper back rigid. This also helped preventing my back from going into a hyper lordotic position. Normally, I would simply just arch from my lower back, but today I felt like I was arching my entire back, thereby relieving the strain on the lower back. It was a bit wobbly on a few reps, but work between the left and right arm seemed fairly even and I was happy about that.
Rows:
5 x 65 5 x 85 5 x 100 5 x 115 3 x 135 8 x 100
Not bad, the ramp weights are really light. The triple was definitely heavy. I feel like its quite a bit more difficult to become stronger on this lift compared to the other lifts. The other lifts incorporate the entire body while the row focuses on the upper back and lats. Stalling on this lift will definitely come much faster relatively comparing it to other big lifts like the squat or deadlift.
Accessories:
**** Dips - 8xBW+5, 8xBW+5, 6xBW+5: Not bad. Missed 2 reps on the last set. My right triceps felt like they were doing more work than my right.
Barbell Curls - 8x40, 8x50, 8x50: Wasn't too difficult. Felt my right biceps get a bit more swollen than my right. I'm truly puzzled why my right arm is dominating most of my lifts more than my left. Going to try for 40-50-55 next week.
Tricep Extensions - 8x40, 8x45, 6x50: Not bad, felt pretty even between my arms. Last set was definitely pretty heavy. I think I'll stick with this set-rep weight ramp for next week.