2014-03-20 Bench, and bench thoughts

Warmup

Bench -
45x5
60x5
75x5
90x5
105x5
120x5
135x5
150x5
165x3
175x5x3
I did these in the Memorial Stadium gym, and it turns out it's probably the best place to bench on campus - the leather actually does an incredible job holding onto my shirt, and the hooks allow for the best unrack I've ever done. It's probably specific to my body and shirt, but I'm not going back, especially since the unrack puts my shoulder in an almost unbreakably solid position.

Pull-Up -
9, 8, 8, 7
Switched to the morning.

I'm starting to put some of my squatting, pressing, and deadlifting intensity into benching (partly by copying the setup ritual), but I still don't "grind" the same way on hard reps. I didn't have that problem back during sophomore year, so I'm going to try building up more volume in the evenings.

I'm cutting the length of the warmup for everything (used to do 8-9 sets; cutting to 7 for now). Prehab's moving completely to the evening for now; I may double it up again as I cut time from the morning.

As I mentioned yesterday, pushing the evenings to more of a distinct bodybuilding-type workout probably makes the most sense, especially for the upper body days. Since I'm looking to up the volume specifically for benching, I'm looking at:

DB Bench 6x3, Flyes 8x3, Extensions 8x3, Side Raises 8x3

For lower, probably try:

Barbell Row 6x3, Ab 8x3, Rear Lateral 8x3, Curl 8x3

Possibly switching to DB rows and moving the barbells to the morning once I'm doing the pull-ups with weight.

Prehab also sees some change:
Upper - Face Pull, External Rotation, Push-Up (3 rounds); banded bilateral shoulder flexion (supple leopard 259-260), rolling for chest, shoulder, infraspinatus, lats, and upper ribs
Lower - Pistol, SLRDL, banded abduction (time.); couch (with rotation in position 2), rolling for lower ribs, hips, quads, hamstrings, and calves

If those prove unsustainable time-wise I'll switch out a bit and do more at home. I'll be doing some of it after conditioning, as well (mostly just to open up the hip and upper back).