Stretching

Good little day today. Slept 10 hours, felt so much better than I did yesterday. Went in, spent some time on the elliptical and then spent a half hour or so stretching, checking depth on my "new" squats (which look almost exactly the same as my old squats), and just moving around. I feel great, so I just wanted to take a minute to talk about programming, training, and where I'm at right now with all of that.

First of all, I want to state that I am undeniably stronger than I have ever been in my life. Obviously, how strong will be tested on monday and tuesday, and if I hit the numbers I think I can hit, I will have made some SERIOUSLY impressive gains. But even if I fall short of those goals, I have literally PR'd over a dozen times on a number of lifts/rep ranges in the past couple weeks. So clearly, what I am doing is working. So, I want to take a minute to talk about what is working, what I should maybe tweak, and where I am headed after these maxes.

Firstly, I would say my gains have been at least as good as when I was doing 5/3/1 or my variation on 5/3/1, and I have been doing significantly less work. I am really only doing 2 hard training sessions a week, and even those ME days are normally one really hard set, followed by much lighter and easier assistance. Then, the other two days are completely dependent on how I feel. Yes, I have gone hard on those days a few times, but only when I really feel good. I have learned how to listen to my body, and less overall "busy work" + more recovery time is really helping my overall gains.

Secondly, stretching is KEY. When I put a lot of emphasis on stretching and mobility, that helps me have better workouts than all the "accessory" work I used to do on wednesdays and saturdays. Leave those days for stretching and some easy conditioning, and that's that.

Thirdly, setting my goals incredibly high has been a great experience. Instead of picking reasonable goals, I am picking goals that I know are possible, but right at the edge of impossible. By doing this, I am pushing myself incredibly hard, and even when I fail I am hitting huge PR's - however, even when I am PRing I know that I could have done more, and that keeps me driving, hard.

One thing I think I need to do a better job of is having more volume on those heavy and intense sets. The way to do this is twofold: first of all, keep setting my goals incredibly high, but take the weight back a little bit. For example, this cycle my goals were 335 x 10, 365 x 6, and 395 x 3. I think It would have been better to pick slightly lighter weights (at least for the last week), and set my rep goals higher, so that when I did fall short I was still getting more heavy volume in. I hit 8-5-2, and then a bonus 1, so call that a total of 16 "building" reps this cycle. If I had done maybe 325-355-385, I could have set my goals at 12-8-5 and then even if I fell short, hit say 10-6-3, which would have been a total of 3 more "building"reps. I think that when I drop to 2-1 reps, like I did this last week, I am testing more than building, so I should keep the weights a little lighter next time. The second way to increase volume is simply to breathe more under the weight. These were a couple sets (335 and 395 for sure, and maybe even 365) where I think, if I had taken a little more time between reps, I might have been able to squeeze out another rep. Even if I could only do that for 1 or 2 reps a cycle, that still increases my volume significantly. I need to be losing my mind before each set, but not to the point that I rush through the set and tire myself out. I need to be at the same time insane and precise, hitting a rep and taking a moment to regroup and ensure that the next rep is going to be exactly like the rep before it.

Finally: I have been gaining weight really fast and easy this semester, which is great. But I think it would be a good idea ot slow it down a little. I'm not going to "diet" by any means, because I still want to be gaining weight till I am weighing 245 in the mornings (right now I'm maybe 235+ some change), but I have all year to do that. So I think I am going to try and cut some of the extra sugars out, and ESPECIALLY start trying to eat more fruits and vegetables. That has always been a weak point of mine, but I think I need the micronutrients and the fiber a lot.

So anyways, some observations and thoughts. Feeling great, excited to see what I can do next week. Lets keep at it.