Isochain Burn Count: Week 4

I completed the fourth week of Burn Count. Results:

Day A drills:

Romanian Deadlift Low Angle: 40s, 105lbs
Shoulder Press Low Angle: 40s, 40lbs
Drag Curl: 45s, 20lbs

Day B drills:

Zercher Lunge: 24s, 25lbs
Chest Press: 34s, 20lbs
Seated Row: 45s, 55lbs

I resumed Romanian Deadlift with the spring carabiner attached to "link zero", which is the carbiner assembly attached to the bar. The load was set to 105lbs. The bar height is low enough to get a good stretch from the hamstrings when I pull the knees back a bit, yet the load on the lower back does not feel too dangerous.

Good progress in Shoulder Press and Drag Curl, increasing the hold times to 40 seconds or more at their respective loads.

After my Day A session, I did the club work again, but because of the effort expended on the Shoulder Press and Curl, I did only 4 sets of 5 reps of the Shield Cast, Inside Circle and Outside Circle, because my form dropped significantly for the 4th set.

I lowered the load for Zercher Lunge to 25lbs to make it even easier to focus on holding for time and not so much on applying enough force to set off the Isochain beeper. I may lower the load again next week, this time to 20lbs because my endurance in this position is so low that the load does not really matter.

Progress in Chest Press was pretty good. I held 45-seconds at 20lbs without much trouble. For the 2nd rep, I tried holding the bar with my hands closer to each other, which made the drill harder. In the evening I tried one more rep with my hands at the width I've settled on, and once again did at least 45s relatively easily. I'll count this as meeting the progression requirement, and move up to 25lbs next time.

Seated Row progress is great, hitting the 45-second threshold at 55lbs with little issue.

I continued adding the mini-band shoulder workout I started doing last Friday. I still feel uncomfortable when reaching overhead with the left arm sometimes, but it's early. Hopefully a few weeks of this mini-band workout will produce results. I lack the endurance to hit 15 reps a set on all the exercises, so there's room for improvement.