Exerbabble for Cinco De Mayo Dos Mil Seis.

I had my oatmeal for breakfast. I classed, and ate lunch with the ladies. I had a banana on me, if they were going to leave immediately. But they didn’t, so I’ve only now eaten the banana. So, today’s workout:

current bodyweight: 143 lbs (- .8 lbs, weekly average of 143 lbs)

First things first, the decline press. I went relatively fast through my sets. Normally I kind of give myself a lot of rest time, because my heart races. I’ve never declined 105 for more than 3×5, and hesitantly at that. I made a mental note that I wasn’t confident with my lock-outs. Isn’t that the word for it, when you take the weight off the rack? When I was doing the flat bench two days ago, I made an effort to lift it differently. You’d think, how can you lift it differently?

Simple. Before, as I was lifting it up off the rack, my back would crack. No, seriously. I focused on my forearms, and.. Well. I realized I was trying to lift with my pecs off the rack, rather than my triceps. It’s a subtle mental shift, but it’s made a difference. Towards the top of the rep, you’re lifting with your triceps anyway, so it’s just a matter of trusting yourself. I had the weight off the rack today, felt in control of the weight through range of motion.

I make the observation that I gave benching a week off, and look at that, I’m stronger. I know I’ve been pushing myself rather hard, but it’s clear I need to work smarter, not harder. I get caught up in the frequency muscles are hit. I made a mental note to cut back on the number of exercises and total number of sets when I reset my routine. I figure, at least for now, I’m slamming my body, so that maybe my recovery time between sets will improve. Maybe. Maybe? Maybe.

I looked at past exerbabbles and noticed that 165 is still the max I’ve squatted, and that’s the max set/rep pattern I’ve used. I do believe in four days, I’ll try to change that. Rest of my body won’t grow unless I push my large muscles. Heh. I said large muscles. *giggles* As a side note, I increased my warm-up set from 95 to 115 lbs. I typically go for five or six reps. I don’t “feel” any difference, but it’s nice knowing all my joints are okay through range of motion.

I seem to enjoy exploiting calf raises and crunches as accessory exercises, so I figured I’d toss in some seated calf raises. I asked one of the staff if she knew how much the contraption was by itself, and she said she didn’t know. We guessed somewhere over 30 lbs. *shrugs*

For fun, I was curious whether I could Arnold Press 35 lbs once. (I couldn’t. Almost! But no dice.) I left the workout at that. I must work smarter, not harder! I have a general idea of what exercise selection I want to use for my next workout. Maybe I’ll just start a new entry for that.