Day 2 week 17

Cloudy morning this morning, which has become the norm in SD. It'll burn by noon, but it makes for a gray start. No biggie -- makes for a cooler rumpus room. Fairly humid for this area, though.

Stressful week. Seriously anticipating getting under the weight, even though no heavy squats for a long while.

I used Results and the Shelby mix per usual, Spiked.

Wore elbow sleeves and wrist wraps for the upper work. Warmed up with dynamic work and bar weight before each. Lots of dynamic work with my shoulders in particular because my right shoulder is still a little balky. Add to that general paranoia after my injury two weeks ago and I'm being very cautious these days. The quad tear was my first real breakdown after 30 and it sapped a little confidence in everything else. No big deal and probably a good thing.

All exercises were 3 sets of 8-10 with 180s rest between, all to positive failure.

Shoulder work: 3 sets of 10 reps with 35#. Held each rep at the top and worked to avoid swinging at the bottom. Shoulders felt fine and reps were tough after so much time away. I polished with...

Snatch: 3x8 w/ about 50# chain with the handles on. No pause to press -- straight over without using legs. These felt fantastic, so I added...

Kroc rows: 3x8 with 60kg fat DB. These were a bit easy, actually, so I'll go up next time. I just wanted a posterior delt workout after so much medial and anterior work.

Narrow Grip Bench Press with the fat bar: 130 kilos x 3 x 10 Added 5kg per side, kept elbows tucked, and gutted them out. Right shoulder still hurts, but not in a way that I thought it prudent to stop. So I worked through it and was glad of it. Felt good. Kept upper back and arch very tight -- uncomfortably tight. I find this helps every time, so I seem to be getting better at it. So much seems subtlety, as far as technique is concerned, in that little changes can mean a lot of improvement. I find that fascinating, because it seems like pushing something off of you should be pretty straightforward. Even after all these years, it's not.

SSB box squat to parallel: 3 x 10. Set up a squat box at parallel and did bodyweight squats to the box. My dynamic work caused me a few twinges in the quad, but I didn't let it bother me -- no pain, just brief stabs. Probably adhesions/scarring, so I went on. I did sets until I thought I might fall asleep -- didn't count reps. These were deadly boring. Didn't even feel them, but concentrated on form, knee position, lifting with hips, etc. Didn't feel like I was getting anything from them so I added...

SLDL: 3x8 reps with 60kg I counted one rep as bending over, picking the weight, lifting, and returning. I would let go and come up empty to start the next rep. I did sets of 8 or 10 just to feel it in my glutes and hams. Felt the hips a little, but it might have been wishful thinking. I'll increase the weight here as I can; I just didn't want to be tempted to involve the quads at all.

I'm wondering if I can do step-ups with the SSB and just my right leg. If my left trails, how much work will it end up doing, really? I can't tell you how many docs have warned me about doing too much too soon with this injury, so I'm duly respectful of it. But I need work. We'll see.

The quad is much better, though still a huge hematoma/knot and still tender to palpate. Still, I can climb stairs now and sleep without drugs, so I'm not complaining. Just glad it wasn't a complete tear. It looks like I won't have a divot in my leg, so nothing to whine about there. Besides, I'm increasing the volume on everything upper body and adding the missing intensity elsewhere. I'll also work hams and hips harder, so this might work well for me in the long run.

Better to be lucky than good. Later.