Okay, this past week was weird in every sense.  First my triceps were feeling really odd.  The best phrase I could use to describe the feeling was a guitar string being twang every 5 minutes.  That was Wednesday and Thursday of last week…

While my body didn’t hurt like the past weeks, my chest muscles (pecs) were pretty tender (especially the right side), and my right tri actually hurt a little when I touched it (this was very weird!).  So I approached this workout session with some trepidation about hurting myself because I’m moving too quickly in fairly quick strength gains.  But it’s so hard not to keep the progress rolling, so I pushed it a bit today too!

• Bench (seems like I’m consistently gaining):
  • 45 lbs –   8 reps – I still like to do a quick set with the bar just to get loose.
  • 135 lbs – 8 reps, I use this set to gauge how my arms and chest feel.  The felt tender a bit, but strong enough.
  • 185 lbs –  6 reps (This level has been defeated and now I reduced the number to 6 reps instead of 8).
  • 205 lbs –  10 reps (I’ve met this goal and now I’ll back it back to 8 reps and then eventually 6 once I’m stronger)
  • 225 lbs –  4 rep (reps weren’t bad today, if I pushed it, I possible could have handle 1 more rep, but why go to the point of injury.)
  • 165 lbs – warm down set (6 reps, surprisingly not easy, and I definitely felt it in my right pec.)

• Curls (felt better today)
  
  • 25 lbs – for 8 reps
  • 35 lbs – for 8 reps
  • 50 lbs – for 4 reps. (my left arm is weaker than my right arm, but heavy for both arms.)
• Rows (wimped out here, again.  These really zap my remaining strength)
  
  • 135 lbs – 1 set of 8 reps,
  • 155 lbs – 1 set of 6 reps.
• “No weights” squats
  • Skipped the 2 set of “no weight” squats for 10 reps each this week.  Left knee hurt a bit this week.
• Goals
  • I still continue to grow stronger, I don’t know if I’ll try to bench 250 this year or not.  As I said before, I probably can do it now, but why risk injury…  I’m starting to think I should wait until I can press 225 for at least 8 reps.
  • My weight loss has stopped since I’m concentrating on strength and muscle gain.  I haven’t gain any extra weight either and I’m keeping my weight to a 5 pound range of variance.

It was a good week for gaining strength, but I really need to slow down my gains.  After all, there is no rush for it…

Bests,

Don