I irrationally hate this way more than I should. Like, I haven't had to use a spotter in a long time since my g/f works out with me, but, I really would rather not have a spot from a bro than even have him near the bench. What I really want anyway is a lift-off which a bro isn't capable of doing correctly I don't think, even though they have plenty of practice assisting a lift, lift-off seems to mean jerking the damn bar almost out of my hands.

It's very hard to see how your back is from that angle. It doesn't appear to be rounding much during reps, but it also didn't seem to necessarily get very tight before each rep - it kind of looked the same all the time. Since you're getting to what may be challenging weight for you, really getting your back tight my help your form not go to ****.

Also, this seemed awfully close to 295x3 + two singles. The first 3 didn't really look that difficult, what was the reason for such a full reset? A mental thing or to catch your breath?

Btw, what do I know, I don't think I've DLed 295 before (if I have it was for 1 rep months ago), .

But overall I really thought your form was good - slightly surprised, I probably am misremembering you mentioning that your form probably wasn't very good a few times. But your form seemed pretty solid to me.

How is wifeacore? Hope she's progressing as well. Based on preliminary baby combine results, it seems the minicores' progress is in line with original projections.

He was a pretty well built guy, so I assumed he would know what he was doing. One underrated part of spotting bench is not pulling the bar so high on the liftoff that you cause the lifter to lose the scapular tuck; that has boned me on more than one occasion, and I've learned to just rerack and find someone else lol.

You're right, I still am not quite getting my back as tight as it should (or at least it feels that way) and I was a bit worried that lower back fatigue would lead to my form breaking down on the last few reps. I probably could have gotten them, but I figured better safe than sorry.

Thanks for asking. The wifeacore is doing better; we've got a follow-up visit to the cardiologist on Monday where she's going to be getting an echo to see how her heart looks. Symptom-wise she's improved a fair bit, and is getting feisty and stir-crazy again (which lets me know she's healthy).

Nice.

There are no well built guys at my gym and the couple who kind of are are the worst at spotting imo. They all do heavily assisted work sets to begin with. But, their bench is a lot bigger than mine (maybe not bigger than yours though) so I'm not gonna say anything.

Glad to hear wifacore is gettin' feisty. Is a potential SS program still a possibility in the future?

It pretty much depends on what the doctors say, but if her heart gets back to normal I don't see why not. She's still a bit skittish about any sort of strenuous activity (and rightfully so) but I think she'd enjoy it and be good at it, so if she's able I suspect it'll happen at some point.

7/30
Upper Volume

Bench
wu+2x5x245, 1x5x255

Kind of pansied out here; I had another rep or two at 255, but I figured this was volume day and leaving a little in the tank wouldn't be the worst thing.

Press
wu+3x5x135

Tough.

Dips
5/5/4xbw+45

Also tough; I'm going to keep up this weight and try to work up to 3x8, then add weight and keep the reps in the 6-8 range.

Chins
6/5/4 + bw+7.5

Some improvement, at least.

On the wifeacore front, our cardiologist appointment today went well; she's improved a fair bit after only a month, and further progress seems likely.

Lumbar definitely not in extension on the DL imo, something to work on.

Thanks. I'll try and tighten everything down a bit more, maybe drop a few pounds and work on it until I get it right.

Weight isn't the problem in itself - your lumbar never gets into extension, even before you lift the bar. So just really go for that. Hopefully you don't have any anthropometry issues stopping you.

I mean, it probably is a bit -- my hamstrings have always been pretty tight, so I guess I just have to keep stretching, and just concentrate on trying to fix my lumbar region in extension before starting each rep. Additionally, back tightness has been a problem of mine on DL and it's time I fix it, I think -- back to the drawing board.

We talkin' about lower back extension ITT?

http://startingstrength.com/index.ph...sition_control

I believe 8 min mark is where stuff actually happens.

Yugo --

Thanks for the reminder, watching that again cued me in to the fact I need to be better about keeping my lumbar in flexion throughout the lift; I'm quite sure I'm not tight enough on certain reps of the squat, too. I've been sitting at my desk with my fists in my back flexing my lumbar on demand, so hopefully that helps me get ready for this upcoming workout.

When you say flexing, do you mean extending? (not joking, honestly asking, never been 100% sure)

Hopefully montecore means extending, setting your lower back is different than flexing it. Rippetoe advocates setting it into extension before lifting. One of the main reasons behind it is to help your lower back from rounding. However, if you can set your lower back without extending it too much (you don't really want to overextend since this is just flexing it potentially too far "the other way") and don't round your lower back, that is fine too.

I believe in the video Rippetoe covers the difference between putting your lower back in extension vs. over extending and flexing it more than is a good idea.

I'm not really sure; it's hard to extend it in a seated position -- I'm just trying to make sure I can set it on demand (which I can). Whether or not I can extend it is something I'm going to have to work on today during volume squats.

Yeah, when I was first learning how to keep my back set for DLs (months after actually learning them) I did that exercise in the video before DLs every session for a few sessions and then it was just ingrained I think. But until then, no matter what Cha would say, I could do it properly worth ****.

7/31
Lower Volume

Squats
wu+5x5x225

Easy. Cued myself before each set to tighten my upper back and then flex my lower back and stick out my butt. I stayed balanced and didn't have any problem falling forward onto my toes; felt pretty good about this.

RDLs
3x8x145
Still easy, going to keep going up slowly though.

Pendlays
3x5x170
Also quite smooth. Pretty happy with this workout; got a little of dat pump for loco and concentrated on keeping my form solid. Hopefully I can keep it up when intensity day swings by.

Not surprised those RDLs are easy.

Pendlays seem strong, although you are much stronger upper body wise than I am.

I've started pulling the Pendlays to below my pecs, as opposed to across my nippular region, and it's really helped a lot. Additionally, wearing a belt while doing them makes me feel a lot more stable -- I am going to keep up with my +5 lbs every two workouts, hopefully I can keep going up for a while.

RDLs I'll probably just add 10 every week until I get to the point where they're moderately difficult -- I had wicked DOMS the first time I did them so I wanted to make sure I got the movement down before I went INSANE with the weight.

Agreed on going below the nippular region. I believe this has helped my g/f even more than me btw, .

Hmmm, I haven't done pendlay rows since I've had my belt but if/when I do them again instead of DB rows, I will for sure keep that in mind.

Before you go INSANE with weight, you may want to check out INSANITY which is a program for those who are serious about their exercising. There is a thread somewhere on here that shows the scientific studies behind it.

PS I had really bad DOMs doing RDLs the first couple weeks too. Still tend to get more DOMs from heavy RDLs than heavy DLs and such....so, I'm not surprised.

Something something eccentric training ---> king of DOMS

Upper Intensity

Bench
wu+1x2x280, 1x1x295
Was probably as close as I could possibly get to getting the 3rd rep on 280 without getting it; I'll have to play it by feel next week to see if I decide to stay at 280 or go up to 282.5. Either way I think I have to microload from here on out. 295 was really grindy but I got it up; don't think I'm going to be beating saw to 315 but whatevs.

CG Bench
3x5x230
Smooth and easy.

EZ Bar Curls
1x10x65, 1x10x67.5, 1x7x70, 1x14x45
No problems here, hopefully I won't have JeffAwesome-like bicep DOMS tomorrow from this.

Why the 1rm attempt, just to see? Also I'm sure your 1rm is over 300 since you did that after your intensity set.

Do you have a specific % that you aim to do these at (like how volume is 85-90% of intensity), or did you just kinda pick something that felt comfortable and start working up from there?

Yeah, I just wanted to see how I was stacking up. Who knows about my "true" 1RM, but I didn't have anything left in the tank after 295 went up, that's for sure. I'll probably go for a real 1RM at the end of the month in lieu of a day of intensity benching, then throw in some negatives at the end to make sure I got enough work in that day.

I did a fair bit of CG benching back in the day, and as I recall I got to the point where my worksets were essentially the same as regular bench, so I'm definitely still taking it easy right now. In this case, since I'm pretty out of practice, I just picked something that would allow me to get the form down without really killing me yet. I find that these are harder on my wrists than normal benching, so I think it's important I progress relatively slowly on these to build back up the strength in my wrists, since they're at a slightly different angle.

Gotcha, sounds good! I'll do something similar with my CG today.

Looking forward to see how you progress on bench, GL.

My doms finally went away today. IT WAS AWFUL