I’m still not 100% and coming off a head cold. Regardless, I felt pretty strong. It was my first time working out in a sweatshirt and realized real quick why you have to had your hood up…you can’t squat with it down! I made all of my lifts without a problem, nothing really too eventful other than my return to the basement and trying to figure out the accessory exercises.
Squat
I’m still screwing around a little with my foot angle with squats. I feel like they’re pointing forward and parallel(ish), but the video shows otherwise. I’ll continue to play with that until I’m happy. I’ve also been more conscious to break at the hips before my knees, I’d say I forget maybe 1 out of 5 reps or so. Nothing terrible.
Bench
I changed my bench set up too. Everyone says “You gotta watch Dave Tate’s stuff!!”, but it never clicked for me. Yes, he is a legend and he knows exactly what he’s talking about, but it just doesn’t carryover for me. Then I saw a video by Dan Kovacs and I got it. I’m not sure what or how he’s saying it differently, but I narrowed my grip width and brought my feet back more. Apparently I was going too wide, my pinkies touch the ring. Seeing a 6′ 1″, 300lbs guy with a narrower grip than mine was a wake up call. He also explains why you shouldn’t go too wide in very simple and clear terms. You can tell me all day long what to do, but unless you tell me why, I can’t make it happen. Same with the foot position. I’ve noticed over the years that when I get near my 1RM, my arch fails or I have to work so hard to maintain it, I don’t focus on the lift. I actually think this is how I got hurt a couple of years back, overcompensating because of bad form. So I brought my feet back and really drive hard with them, which supports that arch. Duh, it’s so simple and I’ve seen it all before (I’ve watched plenty of videos that go over this). I haven’t been able to get my heels down though, but baby steps!
Rows and Accessories
I use to do Pendlay rows but since I do not do olympic lifts, I switched to regular rows. I’d rather have that eccentric contraction over the explosiveness of the concentric part. I still have to find the right weight for a 5×5, it’s too light at what I’m currently doing.
I consider workout A to be my “upper” chest day, and quadriceps day. These are the accessories that I’ve included for this workout:
- Incline dumbbell 2×8 at slight incline, 2×8 at steeper incline
- Superset skull crushers (8 – 12) + narrow grip bench (6-8)
- Lunges
Video captures
I’ll upload the videos when I get a chance. Still figuring out how to edit stuff on the iPhone and the VideoCollage app keeps crashing.