Chest & Triceps
Had another chest & triceps day last night. I figured 5 days since my last one should be enough recovery time to go at it again.
Barbell bench press: 170 RP: 6+3+3 (for 12 total)
Barbell bench press: 135: 11, 9, 7
Smith Incline bench press: 50 per, RP: 8+5+4 (for 17 total)
Smith Incline bench press: 35 per: 11, 9
Skull Crusher: 65: 10 +20 press
Skull Crusher: 65: 10 +20 press
Dips: 10
We got the gym kind of late, and time was limited, so I tried forcing some shorter breaks between my sets this time. My first bench press set was a rest-pause style (as usual), and you can see I got the same number of reps as last time… so I didn’t get any better or worse on that. It’s frustrating, but as long as I am getting at least 11 overall on the set, I should be happy because it is still really effective. After the rest-pause set, I limited myself to 2 minute breaks for the remaining sets. So 2 minutes after that set, I did a regular set with lower weight (135 lb) for as many reps as I could get. Rested 2 minutes again and did another set, and then again for a final flat bench set.
For the incline presses on the Smith machine, I tried a higher weight than last time because I got all 15 reps last time. Increased by 5 lb overall, and absolutely crushed the goal of 15 reps over the rest-pause set by getting 17, so I will increase it again on my next chest day by another 5 lb. After the rest-pause set, I again waited 2 minutes and did a couple sets at lower weight. [Again, to explain my Smith notation: 50 per means 50 lb of weight on each side of the bar, for 100 lb total, plus the weight of the bar itself, which could be anywhere from 15-25 lb.]
For skull crushers, I have been sticking to the same weight for a while, still working on that form. Again, I did 2 sets of 10 with 20 close-grip bench press immediately after. This time, I feel the form was good enough to warrant a 5 lb increase for next time. So I will be putting this up to 70 lb on my next triceps workout.
Lastly, I only had enough strength to squeeze out 10 dips. I am going to blame this on the shorter breaks I was taking! There wasn’t even time for me to get in any extreme stretching.
I’ll be heading back in after work tonight with Clack. He’ll be doing chest this time, and I’ll be working on shoulders and biceps.