Routine much the same as before, but again, everything went up. More reps, more weight. I felt the intensity increase and all through the workout it was hitting me.

It’s all mental.

Well DUH… 🙂

But today’s workout was more mental than any prior. I really noticed it during squats, because I went up in weight and squats are one of those exercises that I’m a little afraid of for whatever reason: probably getting stuck and I can’t push out the last rep, injuring myself, or some such thing, so I always play it conservative. But I pushed harder through it and boy it felt good. And even tho I track my workout progress, keeping track of exercises, sets, reps, weight, today I didn’t pay so much attention. Sure, I’d look at what I lifted last workout to know the starting weight or if I needed to go up, but after that I didn’t pay any mind to how many reps I did with that weight on this set. I think when I do that it makes my brain pre-set to only a particular level of exertion, e.g. “I did 8 reps last time so…” and then somehow my brain says 8 reps is the line. I ignored a lot and really surprised myself at how I’d go up on both weight AND reps. My body can do a lot more than I’m letting it… it’s all in my head.

I am feeling like the workout is getting to a point of “I need more”. I don’t think I’m ready to change up the workout schedule yet because I still feel that things are growing with this routine, not just physical growth, but a lot of mental and just body adjustment stuff. But I am starting to think about what I’ll do. Do I want to just switch to a 4x/week split routine (e.g. upper body Mon/Thu, lower body and abs Tue/Fri)? That feels like it might be too much. But I think about a 3x a week whole body…. that feels like it might be overtraining and not enough recovery. What I’m feeling is each body part is needing a little more work, like bent-over barbell rows AND lat machine pulldowns for back, squats and leg curls, bench press and flies… a sort of 1 compound 1 isolation exercise sort of thing. But also, 2x a week is good on my schedule, going up to 4x well… have to see.

Anyways, so long as I’m improving I’m happy. Body feels so much better than it did a month ago.