Today’s workout wasn’t good.

“Week 1”

• 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
  • 1x5x115 (warmup)
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x190 (work)
  • 1x5x215
  • 1x8x245
• Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
  • 3x10x45 (bar)
  • 2x10x65
• Asst. #2 – Hanging Leg Hip Raise
  • 3x8xbw
  • 1x5xbw
  • 1x3xbw
• Metcon – jump rope
  • None

Well, today sucked.

First deadlift day on cycle 3 of Wendler 5/3/1, so it’s the “5 rep” day. Let’s just go over a few things, then I’ll analyze.

On the deadlift, as soon as I picked up the 245 it felt heavy. What’s worse is I felt I could have done at least 2 more reps easily, but my left grip gave out on me. Heck, around rep 6 I stopped for a moment, removed my wedding ring, then kept going because the ring felt like it was getting in the way of my grip. *sigh*

On the good mornings, first time doing it so I didn’t know what to expect. I put an empty olympic bar on my traps (like squatting) and off I went. I’m wanting to do them strictly, like this, knees locked and back is straight, lower back arched and kept that way through the entire movement. So of course, flexibility is a limiting factor. I didn’t get quite to parallel, but almost, and it got better as I worked because of course I was stretching it. So, I will just continue with light-ish weights until I get better… keeping good form until I feel a stretch kicking in, and not just the first sign of stretch, but good stretch such that I can improve flexibility which does mean yes there ends up being some lower back rounding right at the end of the movement, but I have to so I can get the stretch, then back up. After 3 sets of the bar I figured to put a dime on each side and try. That seems to be the right amount of weight at this point, until I get the movement down and flexibility improves. I did not feel all that tired or worked by this just yet, but learning the movement and fixing flexibility are more important right now.

And on the hanging hip leg raise, first, let’s go to 8 reps across (bumping it up from last time). However, I peeded out. Why? My left hand grip… literally died on me, couldn’t hang any more. *sigh* You can see in the EXRX link that the example shows to use those hanging straps. I’m mixed on that, because it will not work my grip, but if my grip is limiting…. and then as well, it could take some strain off my shoulders. Hrm.

No jump rope. My left ankle hates me.

So you can see, this was not the best workout.

*sigh*

So…. thinking about it all.

I’m not 100% sure what to do about my grip issues. Work forearms more? But forearms get worked every single workout I do, which is enough… and perhaps, too much? But what can you do, you need your hands! I may go mixed grip on my last deadlift set to help deal with it. And on the leg raises well… not sure. I really don’t want to use the straps… or maybe use deadlift straps? I don’t want to do either, I want to get stronger, but I also can’t necessarily let a weak-point hold everything else back. *ponder*

I’m also not sure I was totally there mentally today. One thing I need to stop doing is caring about what I lifted before. Before I hit the 245 set I found myself flipping back in my logs to see how I lifted that weight, or thereabouts, previously. I do this because I like numbers, I like tracking progress, and if before I did 5 reps with the weight, then today I better do >5 reps, else there’s no progress. But the thing is, that frames things too much in my head… that I have to hit X and then somehow I mentally limit myself. I need to stop doing that. Just let it be what it will be, because if it’s more, then it’s more, if it’s not then it won’t be. Either way the reps will be what they are and I can analyze it when I’m done. It’s like shooting… when you shoot, don’t worry about going “bang” then immediately dropping the gun to look at the target to see if you hit it; shoot, follow through, and don’t worry until later because holes will be where they will be and won’t change 1 second or 1 year later, so just worry about shooting “right now” and deal with the other stuff later. Just lift, stop thinking so much.

As well, I’ve been having sleeping issues lately. I won’t go into details right now, but the bottom line is not getting enough recovery and I’m sure that’s factoring in somehow. I’m working to fix the problem, tho it will take time. I was poking at the calendar over the weekend doing some long-term planning and it looks like this Wendler cycle will end just prior to Thanksgiving. I might take all of turkey-week off from working out and just try to rest as much as possible and recover. We’ll see when I get there.

Every day can’t be roses… gotta have some crap times to help you better appreciate the good times. 🙂 And life rolls on.