Started with 5/3/1 squats. Felt good today, squatting the bar, then 135 and 185 for warmups. Went to 225 and the three reps at that weight were beautiful. Went to 255 and felt the same way. I was nervous for 285, but went hard at it, hitting the first three like nothing. Rep 5 was a little sloppy and off balance (this seems to be a trend), but then I got to 8 with almost no problem, and ground out a very tough 9th rep. Strong.
Next were speed deads. Found a better 25 lb plate to do them off of - it's a little less of a deficit (maybe an inch and a half - 2 inches), but these felt solid - 10 sets at 245. Not easy, but solid. I'm going to have to really focus on moving 265 fast.
Finally, my 5 x 10 at 195 was really no problem. I tried really hard to focus on making the reps perfect, and fixing little form issues I have when it gets heavy - namely 1) keeping my wrists tight and the bar in one spot on my back, 2) keeping my head more neutral and my core tight, and 3) focusing on keeping the bar in a straight line over my heels. This last cue especially seems to be helping my squat form.
Ended with 3 sets to failure of hollow rocks.
Over all a great day. Its good I was able to hit that 285 for so many reps.
Now that these 6 cycles are coming to a close, it's time to think of what I'm going to be doing afterward. I'm going to take a week off, then take a little time to come back and get back into it/max out. Then, it will be back to work, but with some program changes. Here is what I am thinking:
1) Keep the 5/3/1 squats on monday, and the speed deads, but instead of 5 x 10 at 215, drop to a 5 x 5. This should be fairly easy after getting 5 x 10's at 205 the month before. Then, I can continue increasing 10 lbs a cycle, pushing that 5 x 5 up to 255, 265, or 275 before changing again.
1) Keep the assistance work (5/3/1 front squats / heavy good mornings) the same, but instead of squatting to a max, switch to chaos and pain squatting, like I do with my bench - whatever my 5/3/1 weight was for the week, do that for either 10 x 3, 15 x 2, or 10 x 1. This will mentally/physically give me a break from squatting to a max every thurs, and increase my volume at heavy weights.
3) stop squatting to a max saturday for at least 3 cycles, and rest instead.
I don't really want to change much upper body stuff because that has been going well, but I think taht squatting to a max twice (and even once) a week has taken it's toll mentally. Even though is ic CLEAR from my 5/3/1 work that I'm getting stronger, not being able to set new pr's every thurs or sat is making me FEEL as if those are bad workouts. I think that changing thurs to still be heavy, but be focused on LOTS of heavy reps, will be better physically and psychologically (it works for my bench), and that giving myself saturday as an extra rest day for a few cycles will help me heal and continue to get stronger. Then, I can slowly start to go heavy on that day again, after taking a few month away from heavy squats.
These are just some basic ideas, but I think they are all good - allowing me to keep the parts of the program that I think are working best, and tweak the parts that I think could be better. BUT, still have to fight through these next 4 - 5 weeks before I make any changes.
One day....
SO, lets keep working hard and getting better. FUCK YEAH.
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