“Week 2”

• 3 reps – Squat (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x3x145
  • 1x3x170 (work)
  • 1x3x195
  • 1x5x220
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Leg Curl
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Metcon – jump rope
  • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

Today was interesting. If you follow along, I’ve been having mental blockades about squatting for whatever reason. I’ve been trying to overcome it, but it’s been a struggle. Well, today I may have had a breakthrough.

I turned off my brain.

This is something I already know, to just quiet down the brain. Just do it. Squat or squat not. See, I spend so much time trying to deal with my hatred of squatting, my fears, my hangups, whatever they are. Then, I create this big internal dialogue to counter it. All these cues and phrases to psyche myself up, to not suck, whatever. Well, all that’s doing is creating way too much chatter in my head, plus it’s fake. It’s not real psyching up, it’s just trying to lie to myself to counter all the negative thinking. So in the end, it’s really just reinforcing the negative and so things continue to fail.

Today, for various reasons, I didn’t have a chance to talk to myself much about anything. I just had to squat. I put the 170# on and it actually felt good. Strong. I had surprised myself at how good it felt. 195 felt fine too. So I strapped on 220 and sure it felt heavy, but I just kept going. The problem tho was that my brain was going… I was focused on my surprise about how not focusing on anything seemed to be helping, but then of course I was focusing on something, and it was just too much internal dialogue and not enough focus on squatting. But it was a happy feeling, not a “fuck, I suck” feeling. So all good.

So, I just need to get a little less psyched and a little more “zen” about things. Just quiet the brain, empty the head, and move the weight. If I say anything, it should only be small cues to remind myself about something, e.g. “tight” or “chin up” or whatever. Because I either can move the weight, or I can’t. The brain will affect if I can or not, so just take it out of the equation.

Things felt alright then. When I look back at last cycle, my “week 3” was 1x4x220, so I beat that by 1 rep. I actually think I could have gotten 6 if my brain wasn’t so giddy. So strength is improving, form is improving, and mental game is improving. Peace. Peace. Peace.

As for assistance work, just all good. Keep steady here, and I’ll bump the weights during deload week.

On rope jumping, I started out trying to run in place, but I’d trip up about 2 hops into it. A combo of leg muscle exhaustion and that tendon in my left ankle being jammed out of place. So I stopped after a few flubs, why reinforce bad form, and just did normal two-foot hops. I spun the rope at a fast pace tho.

All in all, I’ll take this as a good day, as hopefully a breakthrough in my mental approach. We’ll see how it leads me into next week, being “week 3”.