Fri 11/30 - Upper

Back from a week long break from Friday, 11/23 through Thursday, 11/29 while I was hunting with Uncle Bob in PA.  I shot a real nice 8-point buck with an 18.25" spread!  Check out this page where I posted some pictures, or click the link to the page on the right titled "PA Hunting Trip".

Workout:
(DBIncline)65#x8,70#x8,8,8 great!
 (90#T-Bar)4x8 good
(135#SmithBench)AMRAP 18,16,16 great
(95#SmithOHP)10,8,8
(30#InclineFlys)3x10
(Dips)2x10 hard
(OHTriExt)55#x12,60#x12,10'
(20#RearDelt)3x12
(60#Crunch)20/+8,8,8
(25#FrontDelt)20,15
64mins

 I wasn't sure what to expect from this workout after a week off. I was pleasantly surprised! DB Incline and AMRAP bench were better than my last workout. I did more reps with 70# DB's than I've done before. Elbows are feeling a little better, but I'm heavy right now and didn't want to risk starting pullups yet. T-bar row was good. OHP was good on the smith machine and I super setted that with incline flys.

 I didn't have dips written in, but decided to do 2 sets. They were harder than normal. I barely got the last rep up on 2nd set. Normally 2 sets of 10 would be pretty much a piece of cake. I think this was a combination of my weight and because I'd hit incline and bench hard so tri's and chest were already well worked. Overhead Tri's and rear delt superset was pretty good. I failed on the last tri extension. Weighted crunches were good and I think I might have to bump up the weight again. I decided to hit 2 quick sets of front delts and probably need to use a 35# plate instead of 25#'s.

 Looking back on it, I probably should have started a sub-maximal ramp up after a de-load week, but that's just hard for me to get my head around mentally. It felt good to get back in the gym after a week off. That's the first break I've taken of more than 2-3 days in a year! I felt strong and was happy I could put up the same weights. Intuitively, I guess I knew a week off wouldn't hurt my strenght, but since I hadn't done it before I didn't know how it would work out. It worked out great, and I was very happy.

On the negative side, my knees are trashed from hiking/hunting/falling in the mountains.  I think I'll need to give them at least a week off before doing any squats or leg press.  I might try some dead lifts in a couple of days and see how that goes.

Nutrition:
My nutrition has been all over the place the last week. I ate irregularly and like general crap while on the hunting trip, but didn't gain much weight because they were long days of 11-12 hours hiking in the mountains. I ate as often and as much as I could during those days. But, my weight was already up a bit from Thanksgiving and then yesterday I ate like I was hunting, only I didn't have all the physical exertion so my weight spiked to 188.0 this morning. My diet was a little cleaner today, but I'm going to "enjoy" the weekend and get back to a clean diet starting Monday and strip off some fat before Christmas.