Evaniel
Filthy Casual (he/him)
I'm telling ya: they're such a quality-of-life bump! I use wrist wraps on RDLs to keep my grip from being a limiting factor, and a compression wrap on my knee for presses.
Hit a Push day yesterday, and I felt a bit better afterward. For bench, I'm going back to a "strength" set of 4-6 reps and a "hypertrophy" set of 8-10. Because I've been doing Smith presses, I wasn't sure how I'd handle a regular barbell. Thankfully, one of the few advantages of working out at a college gym is that there are always spotters!
So, after warming up, I guessed at 245 for my strength set. I hit it for 6! The last rep was rough, but overall, it felt lighter than I anticipated. I'm still down from last year when I messed my shoulder up (265 for 6, 270 for 4), but it feels...doable.
The rest of the workout was fine. 55 lb dumbbells for chest flys. I kinda hate dumbbells for this movement: 5 lbs. increments is too much for predictable progressive overload for this old man. However, the upstairs gym with all the machines and cables is rather popular with the students, which means having to wait on things like cable flys and side lateral raises. So I hit those as well: 35 lbs. for 2 sets of 10. Honestly, it was probably too much weight for good form, but 30 lbs. feels too light. I really like the machine my gym has, but again: upstairs. I think it'll be a summer and break treat.
Finished off with some cable tricep pressdowns. Tonight is Pull, opening with weighted pull-ups. I generally tend to use these and bench press as a gauge of my overall strength, so we'll see how that goes.
