Going to add 20lbs this week. My form felt a lot better yesterday than it had previously and my back has been feeling pretty good. Thanks!

February 27 – 156.0 lbs

Rest day.
25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

1860 cal/136 carb/67 fat/191 protein/39 fibre

February 28 – 155.1 lbs

Rest day.
15min walk

1,790 push-ups and 1,088 chin-ups for the month. 24 sessions of core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff in February. 12 baby light lifting sessions but slowly catching back up to where I left off in the Fall. Decent habits seem to be re-ingrained. Back feels great. Even getting decent amounts of sleep every now and then. Good month.

1957 cal/156 carb/72 fat/175 protein/40 fibre

March 1 – 154.3 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

OHP – 5x45lbs, 2x5x62.5lbs, 10x62.5
Chin-ups – 10x, 9x +0lbs
Squats – 15xbw, 2x10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 5x105, 2x5x115, 10x115
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2268 cal/179 carb/91 fat/201 protein/50 fibre

Squats were a struggle. Too early for that. So weak.

Chin-up volume is legit. I agree that the squats and DLs look good at the current weight and that you can be a bit more aggressive at adding weight if you wanted.

Thanks Monte! At some point I was aiming to get chins up to 75 per day and that is starting to feel like it could be in reach. I'll just ignore the fact that I was doing them 6 days a week back then.

March 2 – 154.9 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

Bench – 10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 2x5x100, 11x100
Curls – 5x45lbs, 12x62.5, 11x62.5
RDLs – 10x45lbs, 6x75
DL – 5x75lbs, 7x95
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2158 cal/204 carb/75 fat/175 protein/51 fibre

Bench was wobbly. Grip and forearms basically gave up on RDL’s. Straps must be helpful with any real weight. DL’s felt fine until lowering the last rep down, think I just let myself get loose so I stopped there.

Bench is wobbly because you're doing it with no arch and with too quick a tempo. You need to get your feet further back and knees angled further out, with at least a little bit of an arch and more upper back tightness. Video also confirms what I said earlier about you not pushing the AMRAPs hard enough. That 11th rep flew up. You could probably do this weight for 20+ reps if you took your time and a nice big breath between the last few reps.

Thanks Renton. Sadly that bench was with me focusing on arching and keeping a tight upper back, lol. Feet and knees were not in the game at all. I will keep plugging away.

March 3 – 155.5 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

60 chinups
105 pushups
2x12 hanging leg raises

2151 cal/116 carb/79 fat/189 protein/19 fibre

Switched tonight’s workout to last night to make way for a bit of a mini night out after work. Drinks skew the cals for the day a bit.

Feet and knees are pretty integral to the arch. It might help to conceptualize leg drive as a mechanism to keep the chest as high as possible off the bench. If your feet/legs aren't positioned right then you either won't have an arch at all or it will collapse during the set.

Also, a test. If your elbows are going past the plane of the bench itself, you probably need to be arching more. In your vid, it looks like they're going a little bit below the bench, so that's an inch or so of disadvantageous ROM that you could be cutting off.

Benching with leg drive is actually not easy to learn without being shown. If you're doing it right, your legs, lower back and lats will be a mess by rep 11....

March 4 – 154.4 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

OHP – 5x45lbs, 2x5x65lbs, 10x65
Chin-ups – 10x, 9x +0lbs
Squats – 15xbw, 2x10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 5x105, 2x5x120, 10x120
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2283 cal/211 carb/76 fat/196 protein/43 fibre

Yeah, I would say my elbows were going below the bench too and any arch I imagined I had was pretty miniscule.

I have yet to manage doing it right but my lower back and legs complain mightily just trying to set it up in the manner in which I think you guys are talking about. I have yet to get all three contact points right at the same time. I am super wary about lower back so I tend to resist at any hint of discomfort in that area in particular.

March 5 – 154.0 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

Bench – 10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 2x5x105, 10x105
RDLs – 10x45lbs, 8x75
DL – 5x75lbs, 5x95, 6x115
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2064 cal/210 carb/63 fat/173 protein/48 fibre

I did a bonus practice lifting session outside of the normal routine first thing in the morning. Bench feels heavy as soon as I unrack it but it moves okay, although still wobbly. DL felt ok. Only one rest day coming up instead of my usual two as I have to switch this coming week up a bit to make way for being out of town on Saturday and Sunday. I will try to lift Tues, Weds, Friday and pick up an extra rest day the week following.

March 6 – 154.7 lbs

Rest day full of restful resting.

1995 cal/166 carb/79 fat/166 protein/49 fibre

March 7 – 154.4 lbs

20+ mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

Bench – 10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 2x5x110, 10x110
Curls – 5x45lbs, 11x65, 11x65
Squats – 15xbw, 2x10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 5x105, 2x5x125, 10x125
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2004 cal/167 carb/85 fat/162 protein/43 fibre

Had a dinner meeting after work which almost scrubbed my Tues/Weds/Fri workout plan this week. Was home not too much after 8pm though and was able to get down to it fairly quickly. Knees are going forward a bit as I come back up on the squats.

March 8 – 155.2 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

OHP – 5x45lbs, 2x5x67.5, 9x67.5
Chin-ups – 10x, 8x +0lbs
RDLs – 10x45lbs, 9x75
DL – 5x75lbs, 5x95, 7x115, 4x135
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

1912 cal/168 carb/66 fat/174 protein/42 fibre

Frequency chin-ups are not translating to my weighted chins. Been trying to get to two sets of 10 before adding weight but lost a rep tonight. Was planning to stop with 115lbs on DL but decided to do 3x135 and did 4x instead. Feels good going up, less so going back down. I ate ice cream today.

March 9 – 153.9 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

60 chinups
105 pushups
2x12 hanging leg raises

1812 cal/171 carb/58 fat/166 protein/41 fibre

Feels like my hamstrings had a little workout yesterday, so maybe I do have some after all. Tough week at work, home late every night this week so far. Just have to survive a few nasty meetings tomorrow then I hop on a plane Saturday for a night of excess and a 24 hour reprieve from life in general.

March 10 – 153.5 lbs

12 mins mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

Bench – 10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 3x105, 2x5x115, 10x115
Curls – 2x12x65lbs
Squats – 15xbw, 2x10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 5x105, 2x5x130, 10x130
2x12 hanging leg raises

70 chinups
105 pushups

1942 cal/197 carb/55 fat/178 protein/47 fibre

Home late again and didn't finish working out until 10:30 so took a pass on the core stuff. Did 10 extra chin-ups for penance. Last couple squats were getting ugly.

March 11 – 153.7 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

RDLs – 10x45lbs, 6x95
DL – 5x95lbs, 5x115, 5x135
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
30 pushups

3102 cal/130 carb/111 fat/158 protein/17 fibre

Did a chunk of my frequency stuff and some RDL’s and DL’s before heading out of town overnight for a work related function that included about 15 drinks over the course of the evening. Macro count captured the drinks okay but the food required a lot of guesswork.

March 12 - ??? lbs

2530 cal/182 carb/150 fat/118 protein/28 fibre

Hotel bacon and eggs in the morning, McDonald’s all day breakfast in the afternoon, movie popcorn later in the afternoon. I have been a bit low on fats lately and usually try to smash an avocado or two to catch up. Today I managed to top up on fats in a big way and not exactly the good ones. +/-400 cal on each of the last two days. Another rest day Monday and maybe another on Tuesday depending on how my schedule lines up this week.

March 13 – 157.5 lbs

Rest day.

2122 cal/210 carb/76 fat/156 protein/25 fibre

Nice swoosh on the scale. My scale claims I gained 3.1lbs of LBM while drinking and stuffing my face over the weekend. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Time change plus airport drop off duty at 6am Monday plus lack of sleep over the weekend equals mild case of the fatigues. Wife and kids are in Florida for a week, so even though I am working 10-12 hours a day or so it is pretty much an awesome vacation for me as well.

March 14 – 155.6 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

OHP – 5x45lbs, 2x5x70lbs, 9x70
Chin-ups – 10x, 9x +0lbs
Squats – 15xbw, 2x10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 5x115, 2x5x135, 10x120
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chin-ups
105 push-ups

2148 cal/183 carb/76 fat/191 protein/47 fibre

Everything felt a bit hard tonight. Thought I was done with the OHP after rep 7 but added a couple extra ugly reps. Right knee has been a bit sore during squats for a week or two but has stayed at very low level pain.

March 15 – 155.6 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

60 chin-ups
105 push-ups
2x12 hanging leg raises

1857 cal/186 carb/59 fat/158 protein/44 fibre

March 16 – 153.9 lbs

25 mins core, mobility and dynamic stretching stuff

Bench – 10x45lbs, 2x5x65, 5x85, 3x105, 2x5x117.5, 9x117.5
Curls – 5x45lbs, 12x62.5, 11x62.5
RDLs – 10x45lbs, 8x95
DL – 5x95lbs, 5x115, 7x135
2x12 hanging leg raises

60 chinups
105 pushups

2356 cal/166 carb/88 fat/220 protein/42 fibre

Home late and didn't get started until almost 9pm so worked out tired and hungry. Everything felt that way. My normally bad bench was awful. DL's felt okay but still need to work on staying tight on descent. Will probably add 10 pounds next time.

Get your feet way farther back imo. Might be worth trying some paused reps, especially during your warmup, to develop technical stability off the chest. Still need more arch, your elbows go below the bench at the bottom ROM. Also, fwiw, you had a comfortable tenth rep there.