While I have gotten a little antsy lately and have considered altering my training out of sheer desire for something new, the fact remains that I continue to improve.
Yesterday was one of the two weekly big training sessions, and to say I wasn’t in the mood would be an understatement. At around noon, I was half asleep and thinking about laying on the couch. I resisted the urge, and fueled up with some good munchies and waited impatiently for 2:30 PM to pop some caffeine. I have recently increased my pre-workout caffeine after watching this video from the bearded fountain of strength knowledge, Greg Nuckols. 400 MG of pharmaceutical grade legal speed shakes the cobwebs loose from a sleepy head.
The gym was quite full at 3:00 PM on a Saturday (note to self: change Saturday training to 4:00 PM) so I had to use one of the squat stands instead of the power racks so I was squatting facing the wall and with no safety pins. Good practice for competition I told myself. I managed 3 sets of 3 at 267 lbs at RPE 8, which I was pretty stoked about. That set the stage for the rest of my training as I now strutted about confidently. My competition bench technique has improved the most dramatically of the three lifts and I hit a rep PR of 184.37 lbs for 4 paused lifts. That takes my estimated 1RM to over 200 lbs, which is a minimum threshold before I’d consider competing. I pulled 318.65 for sets of 3 and 4 to bring the session to a close and other than a nagging, inflamed right rotator cuff, I feel pretty good.
According to the training tracker I use on the RTS site, my estimated competition total is a shade over 900 lbs, which was the number I told myself I’d need to be able to hit before I’d don a singlet. When I consider that I’m still doing basic linear increases twice a week doing a very stripped down program, I start to envision being able to increase my lifts to a point where I’d be competing regularly.
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