18 Jun 2011
Frighteningly, excruciating pain. That's how I started my workout. I decided to find a resistance band to do shoulder dislocations. I ended up popping my right shoulder out. Took about an agonizing minute which felt like eternity until my shoulder popped back in. I waited until my shoulder pain subsided a little bit and actually started my workout. Stupid? Maybe. But, I went through my workout as planned anyway.
I'm finally back up to 45 plate squats again. I remember when I stalled on these the first time I ran through SL5x5. The "feeling" of squatting properly was a bit wobbly. Some reps in a few sets felt like I was straining my lower back too much, some felt like I executed perfectly. I need to sort out a mental cue order and run in through my head over and over. After squatting, I followed with 2 sets of 225lb walkouts. This were pretty scary to do. I had a hard time unracking the weight as I couldn't lift the bar from the hooks. Reracking was even more frightening as I had to do a calf raise to bring the bar over the hooks. Really wished the gym had a power cage. For $99 a month, you'd think they'd have one. Can't wait until I build my own home gym.
Bench felt pretty good. Kept a mental note to myself: tightening my core, upper back and most importantly squeezing the bar helped make the reps much easier and stabilized the descent and ascent of the bar.
Rows are still really easy. Managed to scraped my left knee on one of the reps when lowering the weight to the floor. The lingering scrape pain was a nuisance.
Warmups:
2 x 10 Leg swings
2 x 30 sec. static Squat stretch
2 x 15 sec. Doorway pec stretch
Squats:
5 x Bar
3 x 95
2 x 115
5 x 5 x 135
Walkouts:
2 x 8 sec. x 225lbs
Bench:
5 x Bar
3 x 65
5 x 5 x 90
Rows:
5 x 5 x 90
PWO Stretches:
2 x 15 sec. warrior lunge + twist
2 x 15 sec. butterfly
Leg foam rolls
Thoracic ext foam rolls
16 Jun 2011
Today's workout was fairly tough for some reason. I haven't been accustomed to this kind of volume training since I switched from Stronglifts to Madcow a while back. Didn't feel like I was consistent on my form when squatting. Tight upper back as usual. Noticed that I was a bit more coordinated when I looked at the ground instead of the mirror (the mirror lies!) I tried opening up my stance a bit and pointing my toes out a bit further. This resulted in quite a good amount of depth in the squat- favorable to some, but for me at the moment, it wasn't as beneficial as I transferred some of the depth load to my lower back by going butt up first. As I mentioned from the Monday's workout, this is probably the primary culprit to my lower back pain as I'm performing semi-Goodmornings.
Presses were a doozy today. I noticed on my first workset that my wrists were buckling (terrible for the wrists), so I proceeded to correct my form making sure the weight wasn't resting on my wrists. Managed to hit my chin on the way up on one of the reps, proceeded to laugh to myself and quickly looked around to see if anyone saw my blunder. The last 2 sets were the hardest. By the time I finished my 3rd set, my lats and traps were really tight and burning quite a bit so I rested a bit longer between each set and managed to bang both sets out with fairly decent form. I'm trying to avoid arching my back.
Deadlifts were still pretty easy. Gym doesn't allow chalk, but sneaked it and put some on my shins. Unusual, but I had a bit of back pain when repping the set out.
I keep forgetting, but I need to bring my camera to a work session to really get a good look at my lift technique and form.
Warmups:
2 x 10 Leg swings
2 x 30 sec. static Squat stretch
2 x 15 sec. Doorway pec stretch
Squats:
5 x Bar
3 x 95
5 x 5 x 130
Walkouts:
3 x x 10 sec. x 220
Press:
5 x Bar
5 x 5 x 65****
Deadlift:
5 x 155
PWO Stretches:
2 x 15 sec. warrior lunge + twist
2 x 15 sec. butterfly
14 Jun 2011
Had a fairly sickly day today- didn't feel well all day, had no appetite and moreover I developed a headache, pounding in my left side of the head by the time I got back home from work. Popped a Tylenol and went to the gym anyway and surprise, surprise...headache gone afterwards and felt much better. My diagnosis of my condition for the day is that I didn't keep myself hydrated throughout the day especially after downing a protein shake in the morning.
Pretty easy workout today. Pain in the lower back subsided when doing Squats today. I focused on maintaining strict form to avoid hurting myself any further. Normally, I would go quite a bit lower than parallel when performing squats. Today, I only went down to parallel and made sure that my rear end was going up in unison with my shoulders to avoid doing semi-Goodmornings. In addition, I also made sure to suck in air into my stomach and keep my abs tight. I read somewhere to imagine pushing the floor apart with my feet. This helped with activating the glutes and keeping my core tight.
Bench is still pretty light. Noticed that my powerlifter arch in the back has carried over. I'm trying to perform the benches with a flat back to avoid excessive arching of my back, but it seems that my body defaults to having a minor arch no matter what I do. In addition to this, when I tighten my upperback, my back naturally arches. Between each set, I performed a PNF stretch bending over with my head between my legs and stretching my arms out to stretch my lower back out more.
Rows were light, but painful. I need to research more into why I'm developing back pain from performing Barbell Rows. Currently, I'm maintaining a very strict form to avoid cheating by jerking and/or using hip drive to pull the weight up.
Warmups:
2 x 10 Leg swings
2 x 30 sec. static Squat stretch
2 x 15 sec. Doorway pec stretch
Squats:
5 x Bar
3 x 95
5 x 5 x 125
Bench:
5 x Bar
3 x 65
5 x 5 x 85
Rows:
5 x 5 x 85
PWO Stretches:
2 x 15 sec. warrior lunge + twist
2 x 15 sec. butterfly