I can’t wait for the “3 steps forward” part. 🙂

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 22, week 2

• Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 370#)
  • 1x5x150 (warmup)
  • 1x5x185
  • 1x3x225
  • 1x3x260 (work)
  • 1x3x300
  • 1x4x335
• Assistance – Deficit Deadlift (1.5″ deficit)
  • 3 x 8 x 185
• Farmer’s Walks
  • 5, 100 yard trips, 45# plate in each hand, 10 breath rest between trips
• Assistance – Crunches
  • 1 x 20 x BW
• Foam Rolling

I have to keep reminding myself that the “2 steps back” is good for me. I know it is. I can feel it. It wasn’t just a reset of weights, but also of technique… keeping my back flat, pushing with the legs. I repeat, I have never felt a leg workout like I have since I did this reset and worked to “push with my legs” instead of “pull with my back”. Yeah I can’t hit the numbers like I used to… but that’s the “3 steps forward” I’ll eventually get to after these 2 steps back. 🙂

and I have to say, I am growing to enjoy deficit deadlifts. It’s hard, but it pushes me.

As an aside, I’ve been doing more reading and thinking. There’s a lot swirling in my head, but in short I think I need to add some explosive work. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. If I did Prowler pushes, that’d probably fill the bill, but alas, no Prowler. But I have been thinking about power cleans for quite some time. I wasn’t able to do them in the past because of gym limitations, but now that I go at a different hour and the population is different, I can do some judicious rearranging and should be able to make the space to do them. I think with the evolution I’m taking to go for 6-week cycles (2 cycles, no deload in between, increase weights across cycles, deload on 7th week), adding more back work superset as you should; less overall exercises per session; etc… well… power cleans may well fit the bill for me. I need to figure out where and just how I want to work it in, but that’s my current thinking. I think it will do me good because well… I’m too slow and creaky and my body could use something explosive.