Bench Day 3rd week

Dilemma, to train bench during the weekend when I know I will be sleepy but the equipment is available. Alternatively, to train weekdays when I know I will have to wait at least 45mins, coz a couple of divs are doing 25 sets of flat bench using assisted/forced reps on weights far too heavy for them and shouting “all you man”?

Easy choice really. So back to today’s bench session, 2 days of sleep deprivation and I tell you man – I am seriously sleepy! My baby keeps waking up and as I haven’t got work the next day I am on night duty. Today for example, she was up at about 4am and wouldn’t go back down in her cot, so I was cuddling her till breakfast (6:30am).

As you would expect, I was one of the first people in the gym and it was empty which is usual for a Sunday morning. Done some extra warm up sets to try and improve my technique as I still can’t find the “Groove”. Again I didn’t feel very stable and missed my target reps of 5 @ 125kg. Infact this 125kg felt heavier than the 4 reps I did after the close grip benches 3 weeks ago??? I knew it was going to be a bad day as even the bar on it’s own felt heavy.

Not too bothered as I know I was tired, also with a bit of luck, my baby will settle back into a decent sleep pattern soon, which means I shouldn’t be so tired – it was only the diarrhoea and a cold that has messed her sleeping up.

Decided to do some overhead pressing for the first time in months and will keep it a regular thing after the flat benches and see if that helps.

Going forward I will skip the deload next week and go straight back into week 1, phase 2 of the programme. Below are my max weight sets for the coming 3 weeks:

Week 1 – 115kg
Week 2 – 122.5kg
Week 3 – 130kg

Depending on how that goes, I will make a judgement call on deloading in week 4.

Unfortunately I didn’t really have many junk food opportunities as we went walking in the woods yesterday (funnily enough, not many fast food joints here) and the in-laws came round for Sunday lunch today.

Only managed – large pack of tortilla chips, sour cream & chive dip, 2 packs of crisps/potato chips, 3 fig rolls, 2 blueberry muffins, 4 hot dogs, handful of chocolate minstrels, peanut brittle bar and that was about it.

Flat bench press
20kg x 8, 6
60kg x 6, 5
80kg x 3
100kg x 5
110kg x 3
125kg x 4

Seated front press
20kg x 10
60kg x 6
80kg x 5

Seated laterals
10kg x 8
17.5kg x 12, 10

Lying cable laterals
5kg x 8
10kg x 15

Dips
Bodyweight x 22, 12