My change-up was a good thing.

Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x120
• 1x2x160
• 3x5x205 (work)

In the prior workout I was doing 230# work sets, but my form went to crap — not good. I opted to do a major reset, drop 10% (rounding down, be conservative), and work to fix my form. While there may be a lot of things to fix, I wanted to pick just one or two things so as to not overload myself. The two cues I set for myself were: 1. chest up, 2. abs tight. I focused on those, reminding myself of them when I got under the bar, again after I walked out before I did my first rep, and then resetting and checking myself between each rep. I didn’t focus on moving the weight or getting the rep, I focused on good form, especially the 2 cues.

Yes, things were better. Tougher no question, and I really felt it on my thigh adductors, which tells me I was doing more to include my posterior chain — all good improvement. So, it was a smart move to drop the weight and pick up the form. Remember: the body doesn’t know how much weight you’re lifting, just that there’s a stress. The poundage, the reps, those numbers are only known to the ego. Better to have the right form.

I will progress from here in 5# increments.

Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x55
• 1x3x70
• 1x2x85
• 3x5x100 (work)

Nice round number. 🙂 I could tell my bar speed was slowing down on these tho, not always getting the full push through of my head and the shrug at the end. So, I think this is another time to slow down. I’m going to drop down to 2.5# increases, so I’m happy I bought those fractional plates ahead of time. Again, I worked on cues like “chest up” to fix form.

Chin-ups

• 1x10xbw
• 1x8xbw
• 1x7xbw

What happened here? I didn’t feel as strong for some reason, but I noticed I was being stricter on these too… I guess my brain got into a “strictness” groove and it just carried over here. Not going to complain.

Commentary

Not the toughest, most demanding physical workout I’ve had, but it took a lot more mentally because I had to be very into what I was doing, keeping focused on fixing my form, constantly reminding myself of my cues. I do think it paid off, and long-term this will have been a wise move to reset and move on.

I do think things are starting to slow down, but that’s expected. While I know I need to focus on the now, I am starting to think down the line about exactly what I’m wanting for a more long-term program. The Wendler 5/3/1 is appealing to me because it continues to focus on strength, throws in some mass building and balance, is straightforward and logical, and I also think it’ll be something that I may be able to better recover from. We’ll see… much to research and consider.