Week 1
I’m back, baby! After over a month of strict volume work with very little heavy lifting, and zero bench or deadlift work (I did some box squat work), I am very excited to be back and get under some real weight. This training block I am focusing on front squats and sumo, two things I have pretty much completely neglected. Front squats because I lack the shoulder/wrist mobility, and sumo simply because I enjoy conventional pulls. I am also focusing on floor press this block, I’ve found personally that floor press and decline translate pretty well for me to a bigger bench, and I haven’t done real (main movement) floor press work in a while. Let’s get to it:
Max Effort Lower
Went into this day excited to squat heavy, but also knowing my front squat sucks. I was really stiff from work (a few hours of kickball and dodgeball against kids apparently wore me out), so I needed to do a bit of extra mobility and warm up. Still didn’t feel 100% but whatever, I felt good enough.
My warm ups felt pretty good, my lack of mobility in my left wrist puts a lot of strain on it when the weight should be resting on my shoulder, but overall I worked up to 295 for 1 which felt really easy. Thinking I had a top set of 315×3 in the bag, I attempted it, and managed one extremely grindy squat. Guess I found my 1RM for now.
Front Squat: Heavy Triple Heavy Single
315×1 Not happy, not upset with this lift. I’ll beat it in two weeks for sure though.
Front Squat: Work Sets
205×3, 225×3, 265×3 Not ideal, but I’ll take it.
Pause Squats
135×10, 185×10, 225x2x10
Stiff Leg Deadlift
3×12
Good Mornings
4×12
Back Ext
2×12
Standing Abs – Cable
3×15
Max Effort Upper
No body issues, went in today excited to have a bar in my hands again finally, even if it was floor press. Warms ups went really smooth, top set exceeded my expectations so I ended doing 4 reps instead of 3. The rest of the day went smooth, I missed on my last work set, but I chalked it up to doing an AMRAP on my top set. Happy with today.
Floor Press: Heavy Triple
335×4
Floor Press: Work Sets
245×5, 280×5, 315×3
Close Grip Bench
225x3x6
DB Floor Press
3×20
DB Rows
5×10 (heavy)
Biceps (Zottman Curls)
3 sets total, my elbows were bugging me at this point and these felt great. No issues after doing them as well.
JM Press
4×12
Dynamic Effort Lower
This day was my best day in the gym in over a month. Everything was feeling great, body was firing on all cylinders, the weight moved fast. First day doing banded squats in a long time and they felt great. Volume work did a wonderful job for recovery. Doing speed squats banded, I worked up to an AMRAP set at 275 and knocked out 12 reps. Felt great.
Speed Squats vs. Light Bands
200x10x2, 210×5, 240×5, 275×12 (AMRAP)
Speed Deadlift
315x8x1
Front Foot Elevated Reverse Lunges
3×8/leg
Good Mornings
4×8
Lat Pulls
3×15
Abs – Fallouts
4×12
Dynamic Effort Upper
Speed Bench vs. Bands
150x9x3
Close Grip Bench vs. Bands
160×5, 185×5, 210×11 (AMRAP)
Overhead Press
3×8
Reverse Grip Bent Over Rows
5×12
Delts
3×15
Tate Press
4×12