Lifting night, and finally, a rest day

I did an upper body lifting night last night. After my warm-up, I had 3 supersets to do, and a number of AMRAP (as many reps as possible) sets.

I started with bent-over pronated barbell rows and incline DB presses for the first superset - 5x5. I used 135 for the rows and 2x45 for the presses. The 135 was a new high weight for me on that lift, but I seem stuck at 45s right now on the other lift.

I was using 50s for this lift about 18 months ago, and despite the fact that by bench press is better now than then, my incline dumbbell presses seem to have stagnated.

Next, I did supersets of close-grip cable rows (165 pounds) and then, with short rest, as many push-ups as possible (until I had to rest or my form fell apart). The rows were done as 5x6, so that meant 5 sets of push-ups. I did a total of 61 push-ups in the five sets, so I'm improving vs. recent weeks, but I never seem to get past 15 for my first set. I wonder if I should start doing "bonus" push-ups on other days of the week.

Lastly, I did barbell bicep curls and close grip bench presses. The goal was to start with a weight where I could just barely do 9 reps for the first set for each of the lifts, and then use the same weight to do AMRAP for sets 2 and 3.

I used 65 pounds for the curls and 95 for the bench presses - pathetic numbers, to be honest. But, I spend a lot more of my time doing lower body training vs. upper body, and adding upper body mass will not help my running.

I keep track of a number of girth measurements on a weekly basis, and lately, two numbers have been converging. As I'm losing some body fat, my neck is getting smaller. And, my biceps are getting bigger. The two numbers are currently only an inch apart.

I'm pretty sure my biceps have never been bigger than my neck and I'm not sure that it would be a good thing for someone who claims to be a runner. I am clearly adding some upper body mass right now, which I can tell clearly when I put on a dress shirt right now. The chest and shoulders and biceps are getting tighter and the neck is getting looser.

Hopefully, I'll get my hamstring fixed soon and I can once again be a runner who lifts on occasion, rather than a lifter who runs on occasion.

Today is a scheduled rest day. It's been two weeks since I've had an actual rest day (I've trained on my last 3 scheduled rest days), so I think I'll actually rest today. Some new Netflix movies are scheduled to arrive today, so I think I'll just relax tonight.