“P” is for Personal Record (PR). “P” is for Prowler. “P” is also for puke. 🙂

“Week 3”

• 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 240#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x120
  • 1x3x145
  • 1x5x180 (work)
  • 1x3x205
  • 1x5x230 (PR*)
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10 x 95
• Asst. #2 – leg curls
  • 5 x 10 x 60
• Metcon – Prowler
  • 90#, 4 40 yard sprints

Overall, today was good… even the fact that as I type this, I still feel like I’m going to drop dead. 🙂

The work set of squats felt good. I felt strong. I didn’t have any sort of mental issue. It was again a “squat, or squat not” sort of approach. In fact, as of Monday’s workout I actually tried to just not think about this workout as all. It will be whatever it will be, don’t think about it, don’t stress over it. And I think that helped.

During the final set, I did ask someone to spot me, just in case. I think that helped give me a little confidence that if in fact I did fail I’d be alright. And so I hit the bar, did 1x5x230. I consider that sorta a PR. It’s not truly because I have done 1x5x230 before, back during the PPNP stuff, but my form was horrible. My form is MUCH better now and it showed today. Sure there was some forward lean, it wasn’t 100% perfect, but it wasn’t the ridiculous struggle it was before. Plus, just getting back to this level is a bit of a win for me. So, it’s not technically a PR, but it’s progress. Now that I think about it, I should have went for 6 and made it more of a firm PR. Oh well, there’s always next cycle.

Assistance work was fine. I have been thinking tho, one thing I’ve been doing on my deload weeks is upping my assistance work so that it stresses me like all other weeks. I’m thinking no, don’t do that. Keep my assistance work as-is during deload and truly let deload be deload. I may not break much of a sweat, but that’s fine because it’s more about recouperation. I’ll bump when I start the next cycle.

No jump rope, because Mr. Prowler was there. Of course he’s been working every day on this and has worked himself up to 90# (2 45’s) on the prowler. Me? I haven’t, but I wasn’t going to let my situation interrupt his flow since he’s doing me the favor. I did figure however that it would kill me, and I wouldn’t get 10 sprints in, especially given all the heavy leg work I just did. So I did 4 40 yard sprints with 90# on the prowler. On run 3 I started to slow towards the finish line. On run 4 it was tougher still to finish up. I was sucking wind pretty hard afterwards, my glutes and adductors were screaming at me, and I felt like I was going to puke. 🙂 Didn’t, but I was sucking wind and sitting on a bench for at least a good 5 minutes just trying to recover. Heh. The walk home was weary. Right now my body is saying “go take a nap” because it wants to recoup. I think I just might do that.

Next up is deload. I want to take that rather seriously, really go light and easy tho let my brain focus on form. One form thing that I want to work on is breathing. I stumbled upon something today that I want to explore.

See, when I come up to the bar, I’m setting myself, getting my body in position, tightening things up, which includes the torso for the valsalva maneuver… so I suck in a big belly full of air, hold it, tighten up, get the bar unracked, get into position… and by then my head starts to feel kinda light or dizzy or whatever, and so when I take the first breath that just exacerbates the situation and it can make getting through the set difficult. Happens on any set, but is most noticeable on the heavier sets. Of course, that’s no good, and has been a source of some of my problems.

On the second to last work set of squats I came up to the bar, got under it, and didn’t take a big breath until I was lifting the bar off. It was like I was fully in position, then all at once I breathe, tighten the body, and unrack. That seemed to work a LOT better and my body responded better, no dizzy feeling or whatever. I attempted to do the same on my last work set, and didn’t quite get there, but it was better than normal. So I need to figure out the groove here. But I want to explore this more because it’s been a source of issue for me. A small technical detail, but makes a big difference.