Dumbbell Bench: Incremented to failure at 55
Deadlift: 1x6 180
Dips: 1/1/1
I learned something today. I learned that while taking a one week break at the end of each quarter is going to end up being a good thing, taking almost two weeks off without even running is not. Squats fucking killed me today.
I knew after the last time I was in the gym I needed a break, but the set today at 185 felt almost as bad as my third set of 200 that last time. My plan right now is to use this week as a "recovery" week and do incremented sets like what I have listed. Tuesday I'm planning on sets of 175, 180, and 185 then sets of 180, 185, 190 on Thursday. Next Sunday I'm going to do either 185 or 190 back on the 3x5 set schedule depending on how I feel.
Joe and I are switching to dumbbell exercises for everything except Squats and Deadlift this quarter. We figured this will give us a chance to change it up a bit on our muscles. So in that vein we both did a weight finding session to fix our working weights in. We were both pretty shocked by making it into the fifties. I ended up failing on my fourth rep at 55 and while Joe got through the whole set, I think the primary reason for that is I also had done a set at 52.5 because I honestly thought that's where I'd fail at.
Deadlifts felt fucking amazing once again. I put on my sweat pants just for this exercise so that I wouldn't be worrying about scraping my shins with the bar. This was so goddamn liberating I can't really describe it. I could put all my focus on doing the lift with my for perfect instead of having to worry about keeping the bar off my shins so I didn't pull a Joe and scrape them up to the point of bleeding all over the fucking gym.
Dips were...odd. On the one hand I was blown out tired and some muscles I wasn't even aware of were being used in the DB Bench since that allows for a much higher ROM (Range of Motion) than Barbell bench. My last dip took me about 20s to go up from. I just refused to fail and it hurt like hell.
Anyways, that's about it. I'm really hoping that this helps me sleep tonight and that I don't get a bad case of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness; basically this is when you can barely walk and can't lift your arms over your head) tomorrow. That would be a shitty way to start off the week.
I don't think you guys should worry about detraining so much. You'll get back to where you were fast enough. Somewhere between 1-2 weeks of detraining, you start to lose fitness, but it comes back just as quickly. I think most of the losses are neurological, not muscle atrophy.
ReplyDeleteIf you have DOMS, it will slow you down, and you shouldn't push yourself if it happens.
Do you deadlift traditional or sumo? I have very tight hamstrings, and I lift much more in sumo. 285x5...but I have been...detraining... for a year. I've been working out, but not lifting. I'm sure I've lost half my lifting strength, but very little muscle. I can't squat the phone book, but I'm getting to tibia-breaking kicks.