Started with Max effort squat. I decided to do things a little differently today and instead of doing a max 3 or 5 or whatever, do a max set at a heavy weight. Picked 315 cause it;s a great measuring stick haha, and would allow me to do slightly higher reps than I have done the past couple weeks. Warmed up a lot today, and didn't feel great. Could be for a few reasons - first, I am at a very busy time in life right now, with the play in it's final week and whatnot. Secondly, I drank a bit last night cause I was celebrating the final 5-show week, and thirdly I have felt a little sick lately. Might have a little bug. Anyways, didn't feel great warming up. Not bad, but I kept hitting shittier sets/reps, then I would take the weight again and do much better. Hit the bar for 10, then 5 front squats, 135 x 5, 5 front squats, then 225 for a rough 3, then a solid 1, 275 for a rough 3, then a solid 1. Finally, loaded up 315. Tried to just focus on one rep at a time, treating it like 135. Hit it for a solid set of 6. It was tough. Mentally, I had assured myself that I could get somewhere between 5-10 reps so I stuck with the set, through 5 and hit a 6th. Form was good on all of them, they were just a bit slow. I think I probably had a 7th rep in me, which isn;t bad! My PR being 9, hitting a solid 6 on an alright day, with some in the tank isn't too bad. Definitely part of me was hoping to get 8, 9, 10 reps magically haha. But I'm not unhappy with 6.
Next, deficit deadlifts! These are a little tricky. I still have trouble telling if my back is rounding at all. All I can feel is "used a lot of back" or "didn't use a lot of back" haha. Part of me wanted to film all my reps to keep an eye on form, blah blah blah. But I decided not to. I think, at this point, my best bet is to simply focus on getting stronger... getting my quads, hips, butt, hamstrings, back and core stronger. So, I did these high deficit deadlifts, which rely way more on leg drive than normal deads, and I just tried not to use to much back. Simple as that. Standing on top of a 55 lb plate (so maybe 3-4 inch deficit) I pulled 135 x 10, 185 x 8, 225 x 6, 275 x 4, 315 x 2, then 335, 355, 365, and finally 375. Felt that I used a lot of back on 375, so I called it there. Dropped back to 315 and hit it for 2 triples, and a final set of 4. Would have done more, but 4 was tough, I let go without really thinking of it, and decided - ehhh, why push?
Finally, did a set of hollow rocks to failure, and called it a day.
So, not bad! A 375 deadlift is pretty good from a pretty big deficit, with no belt and no psyching up whatsoever. Just gotta keep working, building up my leg drive, back strength, and my core's ability to hold strong, and then with my belt and a real attention to speed and aggression, I think I'll be able to smash some big weights. Probably thursday, I'll focus on some lower rep-higher set squat work to get some form/speed work in with heavier weights, and maybe hammer some front squats since it's been a while. Lets keep at it!
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