My first squat day on 5/3/1 and it went alright.

• 5/3/1 Squat (training max 220#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x90
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x3x135
  • 1x5x145 (work)
  • 1x5x165
  • 1x7x190
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Leg curl
  • 1x10x30
  • 4x10x25
• Metcon
  • 1 Tabata set, jump rope.

(Aside, I see why my indented lists are getting screwed up… the WordPress.com editor is inserting the /li after the li line, instead of after the nested /ul… I fixed it manually but let’s see if the editor retains it. And they still keep inserting a div after finishing a ul…. *sigh*)

Anyways, the workout was my first squat day since I started 5/3/1. I wasn’t looking forward to it because I’m not really looking forward to squats right now. Burnout? Relative unhappiness? I don’t know, mixture of things. But I figured this being the “5” week it would work me well but not kill me. In the end, it did feel alright. The weight felt appropriate, enough to make me work but not kill me. I was able to get 7 reps out on the last work set and left a couple in the tank, especially since I could feel I’d only do them if I sacrificed form. The assistance set of squats wasn’t heavy-hard, but it really drained me because that’s a lot of body and muscle involvement… gets you breathing and your heart pumping, especially with a strict 1 minute rest between sets. It’s kinda cool to see the quad and ham pump in the mirror. 🙂

On the leg curls, I had no idea where to start for a weight, so I just picked 30# and figured we’ll see from there. That first set wasn’t bad, but I wanted to make sure I could get through all 5 sets and 50 total reps without really killing myself. Every workout, being as it’s new and higher volume, has left me rather sore. I didn’t want to be so sore I couldn’t walk (Wife still cracks up at the time I worked my calves so hard they were sore for a week and for a couple days I couldn’t walk straight), but I just wanted to be worked. Wendler says to really start light, so I dropped down to 25# and was happy I did. That gave me enough work, the last few reps of the sets required some extra squeeze, but nothing was just balls-out killing me. I wanted to ensure the curls went through as full a range a motion as I could move. So, 25# is good for now.

Rope jumping… ha ha. Hard to do when your legs are tired. 🙂 But you press on because you have to. Certainly wasn’t a glorious session, but I’m trying to amp it up some. Tried to have every 3rd “rep” be a “single hop” set, with the 8th also being single hop. The goal is to add a single hop every rope session or two, so I can work my way to have every rep be single hop. Once I get 4 (single-double, 4x), I’ll start to add the single hops at the rear. So if I have reps 2, 4, 6, and 8 being single hop, then next it’ll be 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, then 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and so on. Put them back when I’m tired, to push me more. For a giggle I tried doing the “jogging” technique on my 8th rep today and just failed hard. 🙂 Not quite ready for that.

So “week 1” of Wendler 5/3/1 is down. Next up, the “3” week. So far, I’m liking the program.