The Change

I have decided to squat on saturdays again, for all 18 weeks of the program, instead of just the last 9.

I had a lot of reasons for taking saturdays off the first 9 weeks - It would give me more time to stretch, focus on condition, it would force me to control myself and stop myself from always doing whatever I WANT (i.e. squatting a ton extra), and doing more of what I need to. It would make me take some mental space from lifting, to try and do the best I could in the 4 workouts I had, and then step back and relax.

But in reality, these were mostly excuses. the best way to increase my mobility for squatting is to squat, deep and often. I can easily stretch and condition after I squat on saturday. And squatting on saturday will make me BETTER - it's not stupid extra bullshit that i'm doing because of a lack of self control.

The real reason I wanted to take that day off is because I don't know how to separate myself mentally form the weight. This last cycle, I put so much pressure on myself to ALWAYS be hitting new pr's, to get better better better every workout. I pushed myself to failure or near failure all the time, and was angry and upset when I didn't hit bigger and better weights. This is the reason for my mental burnout, and probably part of the reason why I slowly let my squat develop more and more bad habits.

But the truth is, I love lifting, and I LOVE squatting. And I WANT to squat on saturday, because it;s fun for me AND will make me better, faster. I just convinced myself that the only way to escape that mental stress was to force myself to back off. But in reality, I need to learn how to enjoy myself, regardless of how much weight I'm putting up any given session. Sometimes a workout will suck, and sometimes it will be amazing, but In the end I will always lose if I can't just be happy doing what I love. And forcing myself away from it isn't the answer. It's just going to slow my progress, and then in 9 weeks when I try to squat 3 days a week again, I'll run into the same problem.

No, I will squat saturdays. But instead of programming anything, or deciding to squat to a max, I'm just going to do what feels good on that day. Feel strong? Squat a heavy triple. Really strong? heavy single. Feel like shit? Do a bunch of sets of 8. Feel like the fuckin master? Go for a new pr. I just need to remember that it's not all about hitting new Pr's every week. I love lifting, and If I just do it for no other reason than that, I WILL get stronger and better. But getting caught up in "stronger" all the time is going to take away my love for what I do, and that's no good.

So, I will squat saturdays, so that I might learn to alleviate that mental stress, rather than simply avoiding it. And I will get better, stronger, faster, and be happier because of it. It is good.