Something Awry

I was fully psyched to bench heavy today. It's Monday and I've been a slug all weekend, lazily waltzing through the New York Renaissance Fair on Saturday, and basically doing nothing but catching up on the Olympic coverage on my DVR all of Sunday. Plus drinking lots of mead (honey wine) and eating pulled pork, ice cream, grilled skirt steak, bacon flavored popcorn.

Obviously, I haven't decided whether I'm going to enter the NY Grand Prix show or not or I'd be eating a bit more carefully. I've also been perusing websites looking at posing suits and instant tan products because those are the two things you need besides muscles and low bodyfat to compete. Wow, some of these glittering suits cost upward of $300! Some of them would not look inappropriate on Las Vegas showgirls.

I push myself on cardio and 45 minutes gets me a respectable 5.25 miles. But the A/C is on so high that I'm not sweating as profusely as I'd like. Once I take my hoodie off (to put my elbow braces on) I cool down and dry off rather quickly. The Smith machine is empty and I push the bar a dozen times just to warm up my arms and chest. Once I put plates on the bar though, I realize somethings amiss. The bar doesn't glide smoothly up its tract, sticking and catching a quarter way up instead. It makes the lift nerve-wracking.

I bench a set at 95 and another set at 115 but each rep catches as if the cables are gunked. When I load another pair of plates on for 135 lbs, I get really nervous, and ask a young man standing nearby if he'll spot me. He's nice enough to say yes, and thankgoodness, because the bar sticks horribly on the 6th rep. I'm done. It's too hard to concentrate on benching heavy while wondering if it's going to stick and cause grievous injury.

I'm also really disappointed. High reps are for the end of the week — I did those last Thursday, and I wasn't even sore the next day (sigh). I've tried dumbbell presses and flyes, both machine and dumbbell, and I always inadvertently pop my back out of alignment, which is painful and causes untold muscle knots and spasms. But the Decline Bench is free so I do sets there although not as heavy. Because my chest workout seems lacking today, I decide to move up to the 20 lb dumbbells when I get to delts.

Today's Total Workout:
45 min cardio = 5.25 miles
Smith bench: 12 @ bar / 12 @ 95 / 12 @ 115 / 6 @ 135 (equipment failure)
Cage stretch & kicks
Torso twists: 2 x 25 @ 50 lbs (yes, I dropped the weight down)
Decline press: 25 @ bar / 15 @ 65 / 15 @ 85 / 3 x 12 @ 95 lbs / 25 @ 65 / 50 @ bar
Front & lateral dumbbell raise superset: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Lateral dumbbell raises: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Seated rear inclined dumbbell raises: 5 x 12 @ 20 lbs
One-Arm Tricep Extension: 12 @ 15 / 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Flat Twisting SitUps: about 200 reps
Flat Seated Lower Ab Kickouts: about 125
Mat stretch for hams, calves, back, shoulders & neck

The scale reads 109 lbs. B tells me not to trust that scale but it's my home scale that I don't trust. It seems accurate enough to me. She complains that she's gotten here late and consequently she's not having a good workout. My problem is that I was expecting to bench heavy and I couldn't, and I haven't been able to compensate for this slow-down in my routine. So now I'm "cold" which is not how a workout should feel. I've already told the gym owner about the Smith feeling like the tracts are gunky and he says he'll get around to it when he has time. I'm hoping that'll be before Leg Day Wednesday.