Strong 15, Week 9: Bench Press

Tonight was supposed to be squat & deadlift night, but ended up turning into bench press night due to lower back pain that has been bothering me all week. Last weekend, I drove my very low to the ground sports car for the first time since November. (I don't drive it in the Winter.) When I finished the drive, I emerged from the car with pain in my lower back. This pain has persisted all week. I was hoping to be able to battle through the squat & deadlift session as scheduled, but that quickly dissipated when I couldn't even do a full squat rep with only the barbell.

In addition to the back pain, I haven't slept well for the past two nights: 4 hours on Tuesday and 6 hours yesterday. The result is that my body just feels beat up and worn down: back pain, lack of sleep, and general fatigue from all of the basketball & running I've been doing despite the aforementioned ailments. Tonight, I knew that I would have zero ability to battle through a tough rep. If it couldn't be done smoothly, it wouldn't be done.

Bench Press

133/5, 153/4, 180/3, 199/2, 233/1, 239/1, 246/1, 212/9

246/1 felt heavy. If this week was testing week, there would have been no way that I would have been able to get 272+.

Incline Press

For the past two weeks, I have done an incline DB press at 90/8. My plan was to do the same this week. However, I couldn't even manage 1 rep when I first picked up the 90s off the ground. I tried a second time and managed 3 brutally tough reps. How can I go from doing 90/8 to 90/barely 3 in one week? Realizing that 90/8 was not going to happen in my wildest dreams tonight, I decided to do a set of barbell incline presses at 162/8. This set was easy.

Flat DB Fly

40/20 (easiest set I've done at this weight- figure that one out!)

What I take from this workout is the following question: When will I be able to do the squat & deadlift session? I'm not going to bother to try tomorrow, as I know my body needs a day off. My back has been bothering me for 5 days now and it hasn't improved. I am concerned that this injury is going to screw up this program and my testing days. As is almost always the case, time will tell.