I knew this was going to be tough….

“Week 1” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

• 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 335#)
  • 1x5x135 (warmup)
  • 1x5x170
  • 1x3x205
  • 1x5x225 (work)
  • 1x5x255
  • 1x5x290
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 5 x 10/10/10/8/8 x 170
• Foam Rolling

Ooof…. that’s hard. 🙂

The deadlifting went fine. I actually was to do 220 but did 225 instead because I was being lazy with plates. The notable thing was I did the last set with double-overhand grip. I usually go mixed on the last set, but I wanted to see how well I could handle it with this weight. It was hard to hold on, but I did.

Then squats. Oh my… you can see I only got to 8 and the last 2 sets. I could have ground out 2 more reps on each of those sets, but why? This isn’t about going to failure, especially on assistance work. I sure pushed it, but wasn’t going to kill myself. Tough tough tough.

One thing I did try was a different cue. I forget where I read this, but it was saying that instead of a “chest up” cue to use a “head back” cue. That is, you pull your head back… or more like drawing/sucking your chin in. If you do that, it really tightens everything up in your shoulders AND brings your chest up. I find this a far better cue than “chest up”.

I dropped the ab wheel. As I mentioned before, it gives me massive intra-cranial pressure. I had enough after squatting, why make it worse? I’m not sure what else I’ll do for ab work here, if anything. Maybe I will do nothing because, at least at my level, do I need specific ab work or should I be getting all I need out of good squats and deadlifts? What would Rippetoe say…?