I guess today would be a -10% day

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

• Squat – working max: 295
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 120 x 5
  • 150 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 250 x 1
  • 215 x 10
  • 215 x 5
• Stiff Leg Deadlift
  • 205 x 8
  • 205 x 4
• Walking Lunge
  • BW x 10 each leg
  • BW x 10 each leg
  • BW x 10 each leg
• Seated Calf Raises
  • 25 x 5 — for… I don’t know how many sets. See below.

If I had to classify today, I’d have to put it into the -10% column. I’m pooped. Since I changed my employment position, I’ve not gotten much sleep. I sleep maybe 4-5 hours, wake up because I need to go to the bathroom, then cannot get back to bed because my brain starts going. I think the job situation allows me more freedom, but is also bringing a little more stress and worry. I’ll adapt and figure things out in time. But meantime, I’m not getting enough rest.

Compounding it, yesterday I didn’t get much sleep at all, then woke up and dealt with a picnic table all day. Drove up to Michele’s uncle’s house (about 2 hours away), loaded it up, hauled it back, stained and assembled it. It’s a nice table, but it was just a lot of labor. Spending 4-5 hours yesterday “bent over” to stain it really took a toll on my lower back and glutes. But at least the lack of sleep coupled with that work made me sleep like a rock for about 8.5 hours. Huzzah! Maybe that’s what I needed to help me kick my rhythms to where they need to be — blessing in disguise.

That said, the session wasn’t horrible. It was my first using adjusted squat numbers per Paul Carter’s percentages (Big-15 style). I kept the tempo up, basically changing plates then squatting again — little rest. That 250 didn’t go up like a rocket (first indication it was a -10% day). And the 215 reps? Holy geez…. last week I was doing 185 for reps, and today 215 for almost the same number of reps. That felt good, but oye… that, plus yesterday, took a bunch out of me.

I did my first set of stiff-legs and barely made it to 8. I started feeling dizzy, and I mentally checked out… thus the 4 reps on the second set. I just did not want to risk passing out while lifting and totally psyched myself out. I figured given my recovery situation it wasn’t best to push it too crazy. Skipped the leg presses and just did walking lunges. I want to do some one-legged work to help my ankle situation. I settled on walking lunges because I think that will also help me emphasize some posture improvements too…. plus it’s less boring to walk than to just work “in place”.

After that, seated-calf raises because again, my ankle. This was interesting tho. I did NOT want to go heavy because it was more about getting the most from the movement for my ankle. I just put 25# on for a cursory weight. I would settle into the bottom position… maybe a good 5 seconds, really letting things settle in and stretch. I can tell I have some shortened mobility in my left ankle due to things, so I just let the stretch settle in — hurt a little bit (like “bad way” hurt), so I didn’t push it but did try to improve. I’d slowly raise up, hold for a couple seconds, then lower, stretch, and repeat. I could only manage about 5 reps each time because the pads resting on my lower thighs started cutting off circulation enough that my pumped/burning quads got upset with me. 😉 So I’d get about 5 reps, then rest a few seconds to let the blood flow in my thighs again, then do it again. I have no idea how many sets and reps I did. It didn’t exhaust me at all, but it did feel good for my ankle and that’s more of what I need right now.

I also had an epiphany regarding “base building”. I’ll write on that separately.

So, not an awesome day, but not too bad. I got the main work in, and what I really needed with acessories (ankle) I got. So, life goes on. And hopefully sleep will improve.