Squat 315 x 7

Great day today. Had a mini revelation about my squatting: I have been having a lot of trouble keeping my torso upright without pitching forward. Today, I realized a simple solution! Widen my stance. My problem was quite simply that I couldn't fit in the hole, and that was throwing me off balance. Witht eh wider stance, I was able to raise my bar position, and my squats felt SO much more powerful and natural. I was moving faster into and out of the hole, staying more upright, and using both my quads and hips, rather than one of the other.

Started with a nice long warmup, then began working up in 8's. Hit the bar for 8, and IMMEDIATELY felt the difference with the "power stance." Hit 95 x 8, 135 x 8, 185 x 8, and 225 x 8. Felt amazing - the only thing was that I HATED squatting so many reps haha. I just felt so powerful that I wanted to smash big weights! However, I needed to do more reps today, to work on form, speed, and just get in a lot of volume, so I stuck to my guns. Hit 275 for a great set of 8 - while it got harder towards the end, and the reps slowed down, I felt like I certainly had much more in me, and form and power were great. So, I loaded up 315, threw on the belt (a little loose), and got after it! The way I was feeling today, a big part of me was hoping to SMASH 315 for 10, that PR that has eluded me for so long haha. However, today was not that day. Partly, it was probably all the volume working up to it - 40 reps with weight. Partly, it's probably the fact that this is my "lighter" day haha, and I REALLY destroyed myself monday - it's asking a lot to want a PR today. And partly, it's because (although overall form felt great today), it still wasn't perfect! I got caught forward on a couple reps. I need to work on arching my back more into the bar! Widening my stance and moving the bar up are allowing me to involve my hips and glutes more, while still keeping upright and using a ton of quads. And Arching my back harder into the bar is going to allow me to do that EVEN MORE. However, I still managed to squat the 315 for a set of 7! That is the most I have done recently, and it felt pretty great. I feel really good about the change of technique, and I am really excited to go heavy monday, when I am better rested and do significantly less volume working up to heavy weights haha. Here's the video.

After the 315, did a quick single at 345 just cause I wanted to. It was pretty hard, but solid.

Next, I attempted some front squats, but I was just off today, plain and simple. Squatted 225 for a paused rep, then a second rep that felt horrible. So I decided "hey, I'll just do paused work today." Hit 225 for 2 more paused singles, then took the weight up to 235 and promptly failed. I'm not sure why I had such trouble with front squats today. I think perhaps I just put a lot of energy into the back squats, and really didn't have any more heavy or hard lifts in me today. That's okay. I actually did feel like I discovered, however, that paused front squats could be a great movement for me, to work on speed and raw explosive power out of the hole.

To finish off the workout, I did some good mornings with a band, and some situps with a 5 lb plate behind my head - 15 and 15 for 3 rounds. Neither was particularly hard, but they were better than doing nothing, and I think more productive than trying to move more weight around when I was clearly pooped physically as well as mentally.

So, great day! I feel like I have made some serious strides with technique today. Can't wait to keep working hard. Gotta remember the power stance, and remember to arch harder into that bar, to keep using the glutes while engaging the quads and keeping upright as well. Looking like Kendrick Farris and shit! Lets keep at it.