Well, today was a lot of suck and fail.

First, I should have hit 5 reps on the top set and only got 4. It’s simple – confidence shaken.

Second, no question I’m getting tennis elbow on my left elbow. I tried to start reverse curls and just couldn’t due to the pain. It’s been slowly setting in over the course of weeks, and today was just too much.

Sigh.

So, I have to make changes.

The elbow is the easy part. I’m just going to cut back on things that affect it. For example, front plate raises are out. I may have to drop upright rows, or maybe just modify them. Probably going to cut back on the direct arm work too to some extent. For example, I may drop direct triceps work (given all the pressing I already do) and change biceps work to much higher rep work to get a lot of blood flow into the area. I may change slightly too, like instead of those things add some DB presses instead. TBD, much to think about.

As for the squats.

My present thinking this morning is to take squats away from the 5/3/1 program for now and just work to get myself going again.

One thing is more warm-up work. I find that when I’m about half-way through the pause squats I finally start to feel good and loose. I also think I just need more reps. More time working on ensuring my technique is where it needs to be, on building back confidence.

So, I’m going to just go “free” for a while. That is, I’ll start with an empty bar. Do as many sets as I feel of that until I feel good. Then put 135 on the bar and do at least 1 set of 8, maybe a second if I feel I need it. Then go up say 30# and keep going. As the weight gets heavier, fewer reps. And I do want to let it get heavy, maybe even working in some singles. And who knows, maybe I’ll get to a heavish single and take a few singles. Then do some back-off sets to get in some work. I really don’t know what I will do nor how I will do it. But the intention is to try to find what I do need. Would a few more warm-up sets and a bit more elongated work-up help me out? Hitting some singles should help confidence. Plus I won’t have a prescribed approach yet — if this feels like I can only get 3 reps (instead of a prescribed 5 or whatever), then I do that. I’d rather hit 3 solid reps because that’s what I truly could do, than strive for 5 and blow it. I have to be careful to not wimp out tho – I have to ensure to push myself.

And the rest of the squat session then will probably be simple. I see no reason for pause squats. I may drop the leg presses. I might start doing some good mornings. Maybe then some simple calf and ab work. I dunno. But basically squat day needs to go off program so I can figure my shit out.

5/3/1 (5th cycle, leader-1, 5/3/1+PR sets)

• Squat (superset with band pullaparts)
  • bar x 10
  • 140 x 5
  • 175 x 5
  • 215 x 3
  • 230 x 5
  • 265 x 5
  • 300 x 4 (fail)
• Pause Squats
  • 230 x 3
  • 230 x 3
  • 230 x 3
  • 230 x 3
• 1-Leg Leg Press
  • sled x 20e
  • sled x 20e
  • sled x 20e
• Front Plate Raises (all the way overhead)
  • 25 x 10
  • 45 x 15
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 10