Squatting teaches you many things about life — no matter how heavy the load you are shouldering, stand back up for you will be better and stronger for it.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 16, week 1

• Work Set – Squat (working max: 285#)
  • 2x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x145
  • 1x3x175
  • 1x5x190 (work)
  • 1x5x215
  • 1x7x245
• Asst. #1 – Squat
  • 1 x 8 x 185
  • 1 x 6 x 185
  • 1 x 10 x 135
  • 1 x 8 x 135
  • 1 x 8 x 95
• Asst. #2 – Pulldown Abs
  • 3 x 15 x 130
• Foam Rolling & stretching

This is my first true session post-flu. While I am over the flu itself, the residual effects still linger. I slept a lot over the weekend, and did wake up feeling pretty good, but I know I’m behind the curve. I certainly lost some conditioning because I was breathing hard and heavy from all the squatting, and I had only so much fuel in me.

My work sets went alright. The last set I had to grind out. It was tough, but you have to stand back up. Sure 245# isn’t much to a lot of people, but it is heavy to me.

After that tho, I knew I had only so much gas so I went with lighter weights during the assistance squatting. It still was a tough grind, mostly because I was out of breath and sucking wind pretty bad the whole time. I worked hard on technique, going deep, pushing my knees out, and I was really starting to peed out in my lower back and glutes — I felt it back there. After the 3rd set I was feeling ready to puke. No question I lost something in my sickness downtime. So due to all that, I opted to NOT pull the sled today, nor do any pull-throughs, just some ab work, and certainly some rolling and stretching.

I do need to get better about rolling and stretching, especially the back, glutes, hams, adductors. I am tighter than I should be, I know my mobility when cold isn’t where it should be, and it’s affecting my ability to lift heavier weights. I feel this twinge along the back of my glutes/hams… it’s a familiar twinge, which could be due to other reasons (I recall back in my martial arts days that I could NOT do butterfly kicks because even one would cause this same pain), but I know that the lack of flexibility is somehow involved right now. So even if I don’t stretch and roll every day, I do need to stretch and roll at least after every gym session, even if not a “lower body” day. Even if it’s just 1 minute of stretching and 20 rolls, fine; need to do something every time.

Anyways, I’m just happy to be getting back into the normal groove.