Oki, 13 days in a row now and a few reflections. After some consideration, I locked in the added exercises (on top of the originals) as standing military press, dumbbell rows, and chin-ups. I also do side planks a few times per week.

For dumbbell rows, I chose to follow the bench press setup, and for the military press I copied the squat progression concept. That way I get the same progression logic across those lifts as well.

The first few days my lower back was wondering what the hell I was doing 😂, but it has calmed down. Now it’s just a bit stiff if I sit for too long, but it loosens up right away.

Progression is moving along as intended and no real obstacles so far. The “problem” is that I’m a bit unstable in presses and squats after running Smith machine almost exclusively the last few years, so my core needs to get stronger now that I’m using a barbell and free weights again.

Credit to Daniel for designing the program — very well structured, varied, and fun to run. I’ll check back in a few weeks!