Deadlifts for Thanksgiving

I'm way behind on the updates, but between work, Thanksgiving and little post-Thanksgiving stomach bug, things have been a little busy.

Last Tuesday and Thursday went according to plan.  Tuesday was a bench workout and I decided to test out my shoulder and actually do some flat bench work with a barbell.  I still decided to stay heavy on the inclines and did the following:  6x225, 5x245 and then three sets of 4x275.  Finished with 2x295.  Then I did four sets of flat bench at 8x225.  No significant shoulder pain Tuesday night or in the following days.  So I'm hoping the shoulder pain is behind me.  Then I finished with some dumbbell presses and flys.

I skipped Wednesday and did back and deadlifts on Thanksgiving morning.  The shoulder issues had also caused some problems with pull-ups but I decided to give them a try.  I wanted to get in some heavy work on my back so I did super-sets of pull-ups and lat pulldowns.  Four sets of 6 pull-ups (which is all I could muster), with each set followed by a set of 10 reps of heavy pulldowns.  Then I did seated close grip rows, 4 sets of 8.  Finally I did bent barbell rows, 4 sets of 6.

Finished with deadlifts, great way to get ready for Thanksgiving meals (that's right - meals - plural).  Started with 6x315, 5x355, 4x385 and 2x425.  All felt pretty good and the reps/weights are a significant improvement over where I was a couple of months ago where my 6 rep set was about 60 pounds lower.  I'm obviously not getting that significant of a gain on a 1 rep max but that's moving north as well. 

Unfortunately Thanksgiving day was terrible for the diet side of the challenge.  I gained about 3 pounds, putting me at about 256.  But then Saturday morning came around and I got hit with a nasty stomach bug.  I was sick until Sunday afternoon and lost about 6 pounds.  Very dehydrated and not able to eat at all.  But I'm on the mend and was able to lift last night. Because of the holidays and being sick I skipped a shoulder and leg workout and decided to pick back up with the normal schedule and worked on the bench last night.

Finally able to start on a normal flat routine now that my right shoulder is feeling better.  After warm-ups, did the following:  8x225, 6x255, 5x275, 3 sets of 4x295 and 1x315.  Then heavy inclines on the Powertec, then super-sets of flat dumbbell presses and flys.  No shoulder pain today and my weight was hovering around 251. 

Thanks for reading and feel free to "follow" the blog. 

- AJE