Exercise restart: day 4 overview

The exercise log said it was time to call an outright restart on April 26 2015: the prior daily workout (core exercises and plank-type static holds) was March 17 2015.  I'm seeing better compliance this time on the daily workout (i.e., now well enough to actually schedule two ten minute blocks/day; would need a third 20-minute chunk to bring up the foam roller reliably.)

It looks like that the 45-degree and 60-degree incline bench presses are "close enough" to the shoulder press that they destructively interfere, so something needs adjusting in the split schedule for the dumbbell exercises.

The core exercise block is currently:

• crunches: 30 reps (i.e., no strength building, just maintain endurance)
• oblique crunches: 30 reps
• bicycles: 30 reps (had to recondition this, first day was short).  This is an augmented oblique crunch.  The limiting part of this exercise is a static hold of neutral lower spine.  This exercise was adapted from Pilates, where the recommended reps is six.
• Russian twists: This is in strength building mode; bodyweight is currently about 75% of my estimated 1RM.  This is another augmented oblique crunch, and involves a dynamic hold of neutral lower spine.  It's even more taxing on the lower back than bicycles.

Once Russian twists are at 30 reps I'll consider adding another exercise in.

The plank exercise block is non-optimal and I haven't quite worked out correct footwear for it yet; the compression socks don't give enough traction for either mountain climbers, or commando rows.

3 month report -- exercise program

Overview

• Finally on split schedule.  The weight lifting routine is ordered so that just about anywhere is a reasonable split point.  In practice, the split point is close to when the bench press series ends (now have: flat, decline, and 3 inclined bench press/fly supersets).
• I ended up taking off three weeks outright; came down with something on the 18th (2 days after the split workout Jan 15th/16th).  Ten days under six hours/night of sleep, then started catching up on the 29th.  Restart date is Feb 5th.
• I'm not sure whether the 3 week hiatus led to some deconditioning, or whether estimating 1 rep maxima from an AMRAP of 30 repetitions is just unreliable.  Both the second and third incline bench press/fly supersets (45 degree and 60 degree incline, respectively) were failures -- I ended up taking a pound off the third set and did not attempt the intended 4th set, as the left shoulder simply could not keep up; both the 2nd and 3rd sets of these inclined bench press/flys were grinders  The split session should resume with the shoulder press.
• As I don't think I really can afford to gain a pound of fat for each pound of muscle, I'm having to add in explicit aerobics.  Since I'm in a rehabilitation strength range, I don't expect to measurably slow down strength gains by doing this.
•  FitnessBlender has a decent (high volume) Youtube channel; the login on the their domain mainly provides a search index to their Youtube videos.  They mention that they're having new features built out for their site, so there is some intention to make their site provide reasonably compelling features.  Right now the search feature is the only thing making their site more competitive than collating exercise videos in a playlist.

2 month report -- exercise program

Overview:

• Frequency of workouts declined from 3/week to 1/week, roughly.  Time cost per workout is up to 90 minutes.  Typical time costs 70 minutes strength training, 4 minutes crunches, 16-ish minutes flexibility.
• The retests of estimated 1RM are still going up, typically 1 or 2 lbs/month.  In percentage terms this isn't bad (going from 14 to 15 lbs estimated 1RM is a ~7% gain).
• The folklore indicates that the postural problems I'm having at the shoulder level are from unbalanced shoulder muscles.  Cutting through the jargon is a problem here -- there are actually two layers (deltoids are the outer layer, rotator cuff is the inner layer).  And the exercises for the rotator cuff are exotic (cf. Omar Isuf ; ~5 minutes)
• New exercises to start on the rotator cuff: Cuban press, shoulder horn.  For the Cuban press, I'm using the variant I saw on Buff Dudes.  A bodyweight check indicates that my shoulders and/or upper back are too far out of alignment to even consider the WWE variant.  Two more exercises are indicated for complete coverage.
• The base exercise which gets me into the Cuban press is the Dublin press.  As a shoulder isolation exercise, the Cuban press requires a much lower weight than the Dublin press. The Dublin press should use a slightly lighter weight than the shoulder press, as it has more torque (the upper arm actually ends up horizontal, which is when the Cuban press does the rotation forward).  Currently, Dublin press is using 10lbs while the shoulder press is using 11lbs.
• The deltoid exercises are at a slightly higher weight than the rotator cuff exercises (5lb vs 4lb, usual 4-4-4-4 scheme)
• One of my early Christmas gifts was a foam roller; my interest in this exercise gadget is flexibility, not Crossfit like  balance training.  Results have been good so far.