Squat 115 x 30

Today was my first foray into high-rep squatting in quite a while. Started easy, and felt pretty good. We will see what happens as time goes on.

Took a nice long warmup, especially cause I'm extra tight from running yesterday. Ended with two sets, 10 and 5, with the bar on squats. Then, loaded up 115. I would say the set was slightly easier than I thought it would be. I picked 115 as a started weight cause it's super light for me, and I predicted that 30 reps might suck pretty hard, so I'd better start with real easy weight. It really wasn't until rep 25 that it started to become truly unpleasant, however, and even then it was pretty easy to rip through the last 5 reps. Kept the bar high as I could, my positions as good as possible, and really it was about 27-28 beautiful high quality reps. Got a nice leg pump. I expect the next two weeks will be similar, decidedly harder than this week but not miserable. I think the middle 3, starting with 185 x 25, are going to be the truly miserable workouts. I'm excited! Gonna make these wheels grow.

Next, front squats. Pretty easy, although definitely less so after the high reps haha. I might need to take a nice big break between these two movements as they both get heavier. I did them on the 2 minutes - that might prove to be a bit ambitious as time goes on, but I want to push myself on these, and I can always make it 3 mins later on if I feel the need to. hit 170 x 3, 195 x 3, then 220 x 3 x 3. Pretty easy, a little slow and a touch forward on a couple reps but overall not bad.

Finally, heavy speed deads went well. Again, did them on the 2 mins. hit 245 x 2 and 315 x 1 as a warmup, then went to 365 for 5 singles on the 2 mins. Definitely weren't too slow off the floor, which was my primary concern. The two things that I feel I really need to focus on - despite a more precise setup, still make the "bring the shins to the bar + pull" part as fast and as smooth as possible, and secondly, pull back! With the hook grip, the weight seems to want to take me forward more than it ever did with an alternated grip, so I need to be careful to start with my hips low enough, shins far forward, and then pull the weight back the whole movement. While it took a couple reps to get the hang of these things, overall the 5 pulls were pretty fast and easy, and got better as I went along. I just need to really focus on perfecting this new technique, and simply pulling as fast as I can. If I can get up to 415 x 8 singles, on the 2 mins, with great technique and good speed, I think I will be set up to PR at this meet no problem, and set up to smash weights next semester on my journey to 565.

So, great workout. In other news, I am leaning out SO quickly. I know it is just the beginning, and weight loss is always crazy fast now, but I swear I am visibly leaner in 3 days. I look like I have lost 4-5 lbs at least. I need to make sure I keep eating plenty at dinner, just to make sure I don't drop weight TOO quickly, or lose strength. However, I think that in 4-5 weeks I will really start to like the way I look, and hopefully by the end of this 9 week cycle, I will be pretty fucking shredded. I'm so pumped to look awesome, and then spend next year just trying to pack even more muscle onto my frame while upping my lifts AND staying lean. Speaking of which, here is a natty guy I found on Tnation who has truly inspired me. I was starting to doubt that I could possibly be a lean, badass looking 242 at my height without steroids. However, I found this guy - my height, 235, and built like a brick shithouse. I know he's natty too, because after this photo he started using and now weights 315 hahaha. But anyways, gonna keep looking at this pic for inspiration - I CAN attain my goal of being the 242 world record holder, and look fucking awesome while I'm at it. Lets keep lifting.