I'm Back Bitch

Today I return after a weekend of rest. Honestly, the break did me good. I needed the rest and recovery, both mentally and physically. This morning I was ready and willing to get to the gym, and I had a solid training day as well.

Huge Squat

Started with heavy squats. Warmed up, then did some air squats to help make sure my form was nice. Still working on the mental game of keeping my squats pretty - I think one small problem I have is I still tend to cue myself to sit back into my squat - which actually normally makes me drop my chest and has me come forward. I'm experience enough at squatting now that I need to KNOW that I know how to use the right muscles when I do the movement, and stop THINKING about form too much and just DO IT RIGHT. Just squat.

Anyways, hit the bar for a few sets, then 135 for a few, then jumped right to my first working weight. hit 205 for 5, then 235 for 5 (with a little re-racking mishap haha). Then, hit 270 for 11. It was a good set: I tried to really take each rep individually and I think they were pretty much all nice. One problem is that the bar still tends to roll a lot on my back, which is painful painful for my wrists. But I'm going to continue working on this on my lighter sets, and do my best to hold it in a good position on my heavy sets. Either way, 11 reps at 270 is a very solid day. Last time I did this weight, it was my heaviest set (5/3/1 week) and I got 8 reps, so 11 is an improvement. You can watch the older video HERE

Next were speed deadlifts. Weight dropped back to 225, but I was doing them from a deficit again ( a 25 lb plate). These felt awesome, They moved really fast and felt fine from the deficit. I hope that 265 feels even close to this good, because I have a bad feeling that that weight off a 45 (5 weeks from now) is going to be ROUGH. But for know, these felt awesome. My one complaint is that the 25 I was doing them off had weird ridges that kept my feet from being completely flat as I did them. The deficit was good, about 2.5 inches, but i'm going to see if I can find a better plate, or use two 10 lb bumpers or something, just so I have a flatter surface to stand on.

Next was my 5 x 10 of squats at 195. Being the first week at this weight, These were tough. The first two sets especially, I had a hard time with form, feeling kind of "out of the groove" however, by set three I settled in, and although the final three sets of 10 were not easy, they felt smoother and nicer than the first 20 reps. Next week hopefully the weight will feel more comfortable (having done it once already), and I can make all 5 sets with beautiful form.

Finally, ended with three sets of hollow rocks to failure. I'm trying to take these relatively fast, to make sure my abs are working hard. First set was about 25, then 15, then 10. These are tough, and I really hope that doing them religiously will help take my core strength to new levels.

So overall, powerful day. Rep Pr on my heavy squat, some fast speed deadlifts, and some solid volume/technique work on my 5 x 10. Just have to keep working my ass off, trying to always improve my squat form, and I will keep getting stronger and stronger.