Mike's Log - The Road to Recovery

I know what you mean. I will probably take a log break too. I am really focused on cutting right now, and shoulder health too. So mainly my mind is on dieting, and rehab work. Training just to maintain, is kind of boring.
 
Btw, after screwing around with a bunch of different deltoid movements, I have finally decided to ditch straight overhead pressing in favor of other deltoid exercises. This week I tried a combo of landmine press for front delts (very shoulder friendly for me compared to overhead press) and DB Laterals for side delts.

I'm still avoiding flat bench, as decline benching is just so much better on my shoulder for some reason, so that has been my main pectoral movement, with incline DB bench as a secondary motion, which doesn't bother me either.
 
mikeynov said:
At the moment I actually am doing more or less an HST setup, but with 10's and 5's and 20 total reps throughout. I took a little extra time off recently to kind of reboot stuff to this approach, but am still tinkering slightly with exercise selection. E.g. I tried floor presses out, but may just stick to bench, as they don't really feel "easier" on my shoulder. I also managed to slightly tweak my right (non-hurt) shoulder doing wall/floor slides, of all things, which made about zero sense to me, so I'm trying to be extra careful, and am still a bit unsure how to proceed.
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Would it make any sense to you to approach lifting with a loose skeleton of a framework, and you train bearing in mind the HST principles but in a manner that isn't linear? I dunno, Mike - you were hurt fairly seriously, and I'd have to imagine that you have good days and bad days, where something like a floor slide turns into something completely unpleasant. No matter what - hope all is well.
 
_tim said:
Would it make any sense to you to approach lifting with a loose skeleton of a framework, and you train bearing in mind the HST principles but in a manner that isn't linear? I dunno, Mike - you were hurt fairly seriously, and I'd have to imagine that you have good days and bad days, where something like a floor slide turns into something completely unpleasant. No matter what - hope all is well.
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This was actually exactly my thinking when I first started training after my injury back in ~January, a loose upper/lower template in which I could make exercise substitutions week to week as needed. It actually worked rather well, and I liked the flexibility. HST is obviously good stuff, but hard-coding the weights and exercises can become problematic if something goes wrong, which it recently did. I am considering taking another week off proactively and reverting to this flexible template. I appreciate the thoughts, Tim.

edit: gave myself one more try today on upper body exercises. Note that the only thing which has recently become bothersome has been chins, and I think I was reluctant to give these up. However, by avoiding either pushing or pulling overhead, literally nothing hurt today. I've been saying for a long time that I should probably prioritize rowing strength, since chinning strength is so wildly in front of my other upper body lifts, and I suppose this gives me a good excuse to do so for the time being.
 
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Things have settled down a little bit, and I'm restarting an HST cycle after a full-ish SD (~10 days completely off). 5 RM's from last cycle:

Squat = 235
Deadlift = 335
Bench = 205
Chins = Me + 100 lbs
Seated Press = 135
Pendlay Rows = 185

I'm going to sub in dumbbell rows for pendlay rows as I feel it more where it counts, and bump the rep range up to 15's and 10's in the rows instead of 10's and 5's. Similar logic for calf raises, as 5's in calf raises just feel weird. At the moment I'm just going to do 2 working sets per exercise as this seems like a good sweet spot for some reason in terms of getting the most bang for my buck. First set = prescribed reps, second set = cut off at appreciable slow-down in reps or I doubt the next rep (in ideal form).

Upper Body - Day 1, Week 1

Bench (first rep paused)
Warmup
155 x 10,10

Chins
Warmup
Me + 37.5 x 10,10

Seated Press
Warmup
100 x 10,9 (triceps/shoulders juiced from the higher rep sets of bench, no doubt)

Dumbbell Rows
~52 x 15,13 per side
 
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