Squats

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x80
• 1x3x125
• 1x2x165
• 3x5x210 (work)

Today’s work reinforced that it was good to do the major reset. I continue to tweak and solidify my form. Chest up was key, but one thing I found I was paying more attention to was my foot positioning: the width apart, and the angle of my feet. When I walk the bar out, my feet are closer together so I have to fully reset them before I squat. I wasn’t quite getting things where they should be and then always end up adjusting as I go along. I worked to get it right from the onset. After I was done with my sets, I stood in front of a mirror, put myself into my position, then looked at myself in the mirror. My heels were perhaps a hair over shoulder width apart, and my feet were angled out more than I thought they should be… but actually when I looked at them from another angle, they were at a good 30 degree angle. Point was, I was more comfortable here, less stress on my hip and knee joints. With everything happier, well, I’m happier.

But as well, that foot position coupled with “chest up” really worked my adductors and posterior chain more… which is good, because obviously everything else I’ve been doing has been because those are weaker parts of my whole and so my quads were compensating. Yesterday I did watch Matt Wenning’s “So You Think You Can Squat” series and that put some good thoughts in my head. Anyways, I got the 3×5 but my bar speed was very slow. Next workout I’m going to keep my weights the same, keep focusing on form, but work to get the bar speed up to a “normal” speed.

Bench Press

• 2x5x45 (warmup)
• 1x5x75
• 1x3x105
• 1x2x135
• 3x5x155 (work)

As well, I continue to work on form here. I’m getting the hang of putting my feet back and pressing my heels down so that I get a full body drive from the legs up, but I’m still far from mastery of the technique… still feels weird to me, but every time I bench I get a little better and more aware of doing things right.

I am not sure how much longer I can keep up 5# jumps, but I wouldn’t be surprised if before the end of the month I dropped down to 2.5# jumps. I don’t want form to go to crap here all for the sake of weight.

Deadlift

• 2x5x95 (warmup)
• 1x5x125
• 1x2x175
• 1x5x210 (work)

Whoops! I slipped up and did 5 @ 125 instead of 3. No big deal.

This is starting to feel heavy, but not “oh God I can’t do this!” heavy. I do think that either next or certainly the subsequent deadlift session is going to need to go to a mixed grip on the work set. Until now it’s been exclusively double-overhand grip, and likely I’ll continue that for all the warmup sets, only using mixed for the actual work set.

I do think I can continue 15# jumps here, but again, that’s not going to last much longer.

Gear

I had another change of gear today. The only athletic type shoes I own is a pair of Nike Free, which I bought years ago due to Kuk Sool because they offered protection to the feet while allowing a lot of movement. I used them to lift because they’re what I had. As I read about what shoes to wear when lifting, running shoes or anything that has a lot of cushion in the heel is bad because that creates a lot of give and an unstable base under the bar — makes sense. Wrestling shoes or dedicated lifting shoes are best, but the other recommendation tends to be the good old Converse Chuck Taylor. They are basic, simple, flat soled, and not a lot of cushion to them. You see a lot of powerlifters using them. The Free’s were starting to tear and come apart on me, so I opted to buy a set of Chucks. Wore them today. Not sure I noticed any real difference other than they don’t look as fruity as the Free’s. 😉

Diet

I’ve put on about 15-20# since I started this SS-inspired program about 6 weeks ago. It’s lifting, it’s eating. Trouble is, I really can’t afford to get bigger, at least, due to fat. There’s no question I have some fat gain, but there’s also a fair deal of muscle gain — both are evident. The issue becomes my clothing. I’m starting to push to the edge of what my clothing can handle, and there’s no way at this stage that I’m going to start buying a whole new wardrobe.

But I know what I’ve been doing, and it’s been consuming too many calories overall. I’ve been very focused on whatever it took to maximize my strength gains, and that worked. But now, I gotta trim back. I need to keep the strength and muscle gains up, but shed fat. I weigh about 240# now (6’3″ tall), and using the US Army bodyfat method I’m around 20% BF, maybe 20-25% is a better range to say. So, if I could shed down to 200#, that’d be cool. That’s actually been a goal of mine for some time (remember the up-day-down-day thing I was doing?). Of course, it’s hard to say how that’ll play out as I’m building muscle too, but I still think 200# a reasonable target. Exactly where my weight ends up isn’t as big as issue as the overall body composition improving.

Given that, I need to drop my protein intake down to 180-200 grams a day (i.e. 1 gram per pound of lean bodyweight). I know I’ve been overdoing it here, on purpose. Trouble is, I started to get bad about carbs too… I shouldn’t have, thus here I am taking in too many calories in a day; I was good about this at first and actually lost a little weight, but then I got consumed by building bigger strength numbers — let’s hear it for that ego again *sigh*. So the big thing is to scale back protein intake and strive for 0 carbs in a day — that won’t happen, but if I target that it’ll help guide my choices and habits. I reset my squat, this is a reset of my diet. 🙂

Commentary

I still feel I’m doing alright. I’m getting better with my form in every way, but still a long way to go. I am slowing down, but I have to expect that will happen. With the diet change, my gains may slow and I may get pushed onto an intermediate-level program a little sooner than expected. It’ll be what it’ll be.

Bottom line: I continue to enjoy the journey.