Squats on Squats

Today was a pretty strong day, all things considered. I woke up feeling pretty shitty this morning. my stomach was bothering me, I felt tired, and lifting was about the last thing I wanted to do. Even so, I got up and got moving and had a productive workout.

Started with 5/3/1 squats. hit 230 for 5, then 260 for 3. Then loaded up 290. These squats were pretty good, but I was having a little trouble with my form, and kept feeling my weight shifting forward which is no good. Ever since last week, I was kind of thinking I might take today a little easier, focus on making all the reps nice instead of going all out and being a little sloppy. So I hit the 5th rep, and it was a little sloppy and a little slow, so I decided to call it there, I think If I had focused up and pushed I probably had another rep or two in there, but that's fine. I think It was a good idea to call the set early rather than force out more reps on a day when I wasn't feeling awesome and my form was a little off. And I just got a PR saturday, I think I can afford to push a little bit less on this one day. I haven't put up a video in a while, and of course this day where I wasn't at my best is the day I decided to record hahaha. It's not that easy to tell I'm coming forward on these reps (I felt it more than I see it), but you can see my chest rising a little after my hips and legs, which is  result of my weight not being as far back as it should be. Even so, 5 reps at 290 is pretty solid, strong day or not. Still, my reps not being perfect always pisses me off.

Next were speed deads. Did 8 sets of 2 on the minute with 265 from the floor. These felt pretty good. Not easy, but faster than I had anticipated. I'm ready to move back to the deficit (although going to the 45 lb plate deficit the cycle after this is going to be ROUGH). Still, I really hope these heavier speed deads are really going to help out my heavy pulls. We will see towards the end of the summer.

Next, I did 5 x 10 squat. I decided to stick with 5 x 10 at 185, but to get rid of the time restrictions. Instead, I did them as fast as I could while making every rep beautiful. These REALLY felt great, especially after having only an alright time with the 290. Every rep felt controlled and perfect, and the sets of ten barely even felt hard. I didn't rush or even rest TOO much, I moved through every set and rep smoothly and beautifully. I am going to try and really focus on this 5 x 10 and make it this way every week - I think it will not only continue helping me to build lots of muscle, but being more careful about form will help my technique tons, and help me avoid problems like what I had with that 290 today. Every rep perfect, no matter how heavy the weight. That has to be the goal.

Huge Master

Finally, finished off with some hollow rocks. These are tough and will take some work to master, but I got a much better feel for exactly how these should be today. And they are HARD on your core. Doing  some sets of these to failure every week should really help build up some core strength.

So overall, a solid day of training. Heavy squats still went pretty well, even though it was an off day. Speed deads feel speedy. And my slight changes in focus on my high rep squats felt awesome, and I think will really help me in the coming weeks and months.

Keep working. Always keep working.