Yesterday was Chest day. I'm deloading this week. I need it. I was too tempted to go for a 160 1 RM on bench and I went for it an failed. I got 150 though. I have to remember just last year I was failing at 95 lbs and cut myself some slack. I'm feeling fine, no sore throat. It seems that the day of and day after a shot I feel some sides, but the more time between me and the shot the more the sides lessen.
I got into a discussion with one of the owners of the gym I go to which is a PL/Strength gym primarily about training. He knows my goal is aesthetic but recommended that I think of training in terms of moves (bench, squat, DL) rather than body parts. Also recommended doing the 3 core movements fast and the accessory movements slow - like eccentrics - if I wanted to work on hypertrophy. If you read the post above he also coached me into a PL form for my bench. I don't hate it. I know what he's doing and since I was into trying to see what I could do, totally into it, but it left me wondering and confused as to what to do for what. He recommended Josh Bryant to me after we discussed Rippetoe for a bit. I downloaded his book from Amazon but so far haven't found anything new or earth shattering or really contradictory to how I've been training (body part vs movements)......Interesting discussion. I need to sort it out and make sense of it.
On a side note: it was flattering that he noticed my strength. He said i was really powerful but raw because I've never been coached. This appealed to my ego and my inner athlete.....then again, he doesn't know I'm on gear. LOL.