You are more than what you have become

Part of the journey ended today.

Started with 5/3/1 squats. Form felt pretty good, I was nervous but excited. did 135 for 8, 205 x 5, then 245 x 5, and 275 x 3. took my stance out a little wider today, as I have noticed myself moving it in little by little, and wide felt solid. Loaded up 315 and hit it for 5. First 3 were solid. 4 was a little sloppy and HARD to lock out. 5 was a good rep, and then I attempted 6 but couldn't quite get it. I videotaped the set, and depth was decent - pretty much all the reps were to almost exactly parallel. a couple might have been a touch high, but if so only barely. This is a pretty good accomplishment. At the start of this program, I had in my head that If i could somehow get 315 x 5 at the end, that would really be awesome. And today I did that. It's something to be proud of.

Next were speed deads. from about 3 -3.5 inch deficit, I pulled 265 for 8 sets of 2 on the minute. These felt good - I definitely got tired by the end, but they were moving pretty fast, which is great at that weight and from that deficit. I'm excited to switch these to singles in my next program, however.

Next was 5 x 10 squat at 205. This wasn't very hard. My biggest issue is becoming depth - I simply have trouble feeling how low is low enough. I don;t think I'm even weak out of the hole at all, I just don't know where is deep enough. I videotaped this last set, and even though I felt deep on all of them, they were all just to parallel, with a few of them a bit high. And the final rep I paused, in what FELT like a rock-bottom position - and really, that "rock bottom" was pretty much where I want ALL of my reps to be. BUT, I have to remember how beat up I am, and that a 5 x 10 really is not ideal to work on form. In my next program, I will be doing a 5 x 5, and I'm going to REALLY focus on perfect form and going DEEEEEEEEEEEP, to keep depth from becoming a problem again.

Finally, 3 sets of hollow rocks to failure.

SO, I have reached some awesome goals. I need to be careful about depth, but other than that my form is great and I've never even been CLOSE to this strong. I can't wait to rest up, change up my programming, and start fresh again.