Starting week 2.

A similar pattern of progression: a larger jump in weight/intensity, and maybe a jump in sets; stay at 2/fail. To jump in sets is based upon how things went rating the “prior” session, and so far it felt ok so I did go up. But will I go up from here? Sorta. That is, ratings from today will affect Thursday’s deadlifting. I do want that to go up and feel that will be fine. But then rating that deadlift session? Unless there’s something compelling to rate it a +1 or -1, I’ll rate it a 0 so sets of squats are the same next week. I think this workload is good, and I want to try to stick more to the “do as little as possible that still gets you the desired results” approach. Why do more work if it doesn’t help me gain or only risks causing decline (or stagnation)?

I also am looking at this cycle as just priming the pump a bit. I’ve been away from such work that some numbers are a guess. But also, my body isn’t quite primed to do this sort of work. So how much is the gain here truly getting stronger vs. my body just remembering how to lift this way. Take that the way the template is set up, you provide the template with your 5RM in squats then it figures out of the 5 weeks. Today, week 2, should be lifting that 5RM – but then stopping 2/fail. So in theory I should be hitting 3 reps for however many sets. But I hit 5. Did I undershoot? Am I stronger? is my body simply remembering?

This is why my plan is to run the cycle once, then run the cycle again. I reckon at least 2 runs should be a better indicator, with run 2 hopefully being truly more productive. What to do after that second run? Don’t know. I want to see how things go. Might do it a third time, might do a peaking, might a powerlifting-hypertrophy. Don’t know, too soon to tell.

Anyways, things today felt generally good. Squat itself felt good. Tight is the cue.

Front squats felt a little funky for me, because with the belt on it causes something in my glutes to twinge a bit. But I’m working on stretching and rolling that area more, and also just “working through it” so that my body can improve vs. always avoiding it and the body never does. So the first rep might be a little annoying, maybe shaves depth by an inch, but then things feel better and the subsequent reps hit depth and things just fine. Just something to continue to work through.

I did remember to do calves this week! Again, not trying to do anything massive here, just something to keep my feet and calves happy for overall health improvement.

Anyways, a nice start to week 2!

RP Powerlifting, Strength Cycle, week 2

• Squat (low bar)
  • bar x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 225 x 5
  • 255 x 3
  • 285 x 5
  • 285 x 5
  • 285 x 4
  • 285 x 4
• Front Squat
  • 170 x 7
  • 170 x 7
  • 170 x 7
• Competition Deadlift
  • 135 x 3
  • 225 x 3
  • 270 x 3
  • 270 x 3
  • 270 x 3
• Stair Calves
  • 65 x 10
  • 65 x 10
• Reaching Situps
  • 20 x 10
  • 20 x 10