I ain’t doing jack shit, except setting a PR.

“Week ” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

• 5/3/1 – Squat (working max: 270#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x110
  • 1x5x135
  • 1x3x165
  • 1x5x205 (work)
  • 1x3x230
  • 1x3x260 (PR)

I’ve been losing a lot of sleep the past few weeks. A bunch of things going on in my personal life, it weighs heavily on my mind, and if I wake up in the middle of the night to go pee, that’s it… I can’t get back to sleep because my mind instantly starts racing. *sigh* Only got 5 hours last night, and it’s all building up on me.

Consequently, I didn’t feel it would be wise to abuse my body. My right knee continues to feel bad, and I was worried I’d make it through today. So why bother putting more stress on my body that I just won’t be able to recover from due to the lack of sleep? Just do the work, set the PR, go home happy.

And that I did. Again I did work the magic 230 number, and that felt like nothing and my form felt damn good. I’m really working to move some more details of the squat out of Rippetoe mode and into more powerlifter mode, such as my eye positioning, and working to not get tight shoulders/traps by lifting the elbows back and up but instead just keeping tight and when coming out of the hole to drive the elbows under the bar and press up with the arms too. Everything pushes up. My form faltered some on the PR set, some leaning forward, but it was a mental thing… a “I’m going to move this damn weight 3 times, period” So that I had great form on 230 and then got sloppy on 260 well… not ideal, but I’ll take it. I’m just thrilled to keep moving along with my squat… overcoming my dislike of it.

That’s how to get better: do the things you hate, until you don’t hate them any more. I don’t love squatting yet, but I don’t hate and dread it like I used to. In fact, because of my wariness with the larger squat weights, I’ve always asked for a spot on the last set, even tho there’s the catch rails. Today, I thought about NOT asking for a spot, and I probably would have been fine because I felt NO struggle to get the weight up. I’m getting over the hump.

Anyways, deload next week. I have been tossing around a “jack shit” deload, but I’m going to go in, do a few things to keep moving, but nothing major. Like I might just do the assistance work for 3 sets, I might drop it all down 5-10# so it’s not as stressful. Just move, don’t kill myself. I need the recovery.