I woke up this morning with a sharp pain…in my nose. Apparently a big zit (or a colony of microscopic aliens with jackhammers) has popped up out of nowhere. The thing that makes this one suck is that it is INSIDE my damn nostril, way up there. There is no visual sign of it on the outside, making it hard to pinpoint. Every time I inhale through my nose it feels like a dagger being driven into my face. It’s actually giving me a headache. Holy hell.
Anyways, I worked out today, and it was stellar. Since I have barbell pressing on hiatus indefinitely until my rear delt is good to go I opted to do landmines as my ‘main focus’ today. This time around, to avoid having to pick up the weight from the floor for every set, I leaned the bar across the ez curl bench. This works perfect. I barely have to squat down to get into the starting position, making for a very efficient movement. Today I decided to keep my landmines ‘strict’. Previously, I have done them sort of like a push-press. At the bottom of each rep I sink my hips down a bit, then explode up and extend the weight. I would do these in sort of a lunge stance so it was like a one legged push press. This time around I kept both feet back in a squat-like stance, knees almost locked, and didn’t sink down at the bottom of the reps – I relied solely on pure strength to muscle the bar up. Each variation has its benefits (push-press style = explosiveness, strict-style = brute strength), so I will probably mix them up over time. These felt very strong today, and I was pleased. I polished off the landmines with some one-armed presses, which also felt strong, and great.
While resting between landmine sets I chatted briefly with Fred, an older fellow that carries the nickname ‘Lat Pulldown’ because that is just about all he does. He is undergoing a pretty major surgery in December, which will be a repeat surgery as the doctors messed it up the first time around and almost killed him. He played it off as ‘nothing serious’ and said “I’ve had a good run, so if something happens so be it”. I can tell he is pretty damn worried, despite his nonchalant visage, so I would like to ask any of you of faith to shoot a prayer or two off to the Lord to help Lat Pulldown Fred. I think he’ll know who you are talking about.
After landmines I did a set of weighted dips, but now that I am being hyper-sensitive to ANY discomfort in my rear delt and not tolerating any of it, I downgraded to just bodyweight dips for a few more sets. To make up for the lack of decent dippage, I did a couple sets of paused db floor presses with a neutral grip (that means my palms face each other). These hit the tris very hard. Another great movement. With presses completed, I cruised through the stack on face pulls. You would think these would be discomforting to the rear delt, but they actually feel wonderful. To finish the workout I did a shit-ton of curls. Don’t ask me why.
Strict Landmine Presses:
135×5x1
180×5x1
225×5x1
270×5x1
280×5x2 (PR)
One-armed Landmines:
135×12x6
Dips:
+30×15x1
bw x15×2
Neutral Grip DB Floor Press (reps paused):
80×12x2 (PR)
Standing Rope Face-pulls:
48×20x1
72×20x1
132×20x1
156×20x1
180×20x1
204×20x2
72×50x1
Wide-grip EZ Curls:
75×12x1
95×12x1
115×12x1
135×12x1
135×15x1
DB Hammer Curls:
60×10-55×10-50×10-45×10-40×10-35×10
+ stretching
Duration: 60 minutes
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