Week 3: Back

As with all back days, today was extremely satisfying, and another personal best was achieved. I have modified the workout to really focus on deadlifts, with some supplemental variations like the straight leg deadlift, good mornings (a first for me), and upright row. The good thing about today was that I felt solid, was definitely feeling the potential to add another 10 to 20lbs to the deadlift, and got to see another improvement on the program. The bad thing was that in order to accomplish our circuit training, the gym had to be essentially empty (which on a Saturday was as close as it gets), and I don't see that happening on a consistent basis. I really like the circuit training, though, so I'm hoping it doesn't become a problem.

I was able to compile the four separate exercises in After Effects to give an idea of what one rotation through the circuit looks like. Each exercise had about 90-120 seconds rest between them, with another three minutes or so of rest between rotations.  It was hard to gauge how much weight to lift, but by the last rotation I was pretty fatigued, so I'll just keep track of the weights on the blog and continue to add weight from there

Here is the breakdown:

Deadlift:

• 135 x 10
• 225 x 8
• 315 x 6
• 375 x 2 (new personal best)

• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 295 x 3 (each of these sets had about 90-120 seconds of rest)

Circuit (Straight leg deadlift/ Barbell upright row/ Machine reverse-grip lat pulldown/ Barbell good morning)

• 185 x 8/ 115 x 8/ 165 x 8/ 85 x 8
• 235 x 8/ 155 x 8/ 195 x 8/ 135 x 8
• 255 x 8/ 165 x 8/ 225 x 8/ 155 x 8

Abs:

75 crunches

Final thoughts This routine should become a really rigorous one in the next couple weeks, since I am using the coan-phillipi schedule mentioned before. I am pretty sure the schedule is nothing more than a linear progression from my current max to my 'projected' max of 495, with no indication of whether the jumps in weight are feasible. Time will tell.