Exercise Log 5.23.14 (Front Squat & Bench Press Day, No Cardio)

Today was workout C in the first hypertrophy training cycle of my new workout plan, a Front Squat/Bench Press day. Like the last time, I am substituting light weight dumbbell chest presses for the bench press until my shoulders are healed up from the bad impingement they’ve had. Impingement got worse from work, where I have been preparing for inventory by moving stupid boxes over my head far more often than I should when my shoulders are screwed up.

Front Squat: Set 1) 10 reps @ 105lbs. Set 2) 8 reps @ 125lbs. Set 3) 8 reps @ 135lbs. Set 4) 5 reps @ 145lbs.

Dumbbell Chest Press: 5 sets of 12 reps @ 40lbs.

Goblet Squats / Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts: A nice superset to work my legs, I will use this again in the future. 4 sets of 8 reps goblet squats @ 80lbs / 8 reps RDL’s @ 40lb dumbbell pair.

Inclined Dumbbell Chest Press: To focus on the one area I didn’t hit on my primary chest day, I did some inclined dumbbell chest pressing at very light weight as this is probably the worst angle for the shoulders. Kept it short due to that. 3 sets of 10 reps @ 30lbs dumbbell pair (slow tempo with controlled form). Can’t be too cautious really, and focused a lot on retracting the shoulder blades.

Back Pause Squats: Felt like this would be a great way to polish off the day’s work, and while it’s a hypertrophy day I just wanted to do pause squats just because I wanted to. So I did. So there. Set 1) 5 reps @ 135lbs 1-sec pause. Set 2) 5 reps @ 155lbs 2-sec pause. Set 3) 3 reps @ 175lbs 3-4 sec pause, these were rough.

Great workout, felt great, but feeling a little drained. Hope my next rest day lets me genuinely recover, no work and no plans to do any physical activity… yay.