Friday, November 27, 2020

November 26, 2020 – Week 15, Day 2

2 Minute Treadmill Backwards Pushes
 
Mobility Prep
 
Goblet Squats to Box (15”)
bwx25
40x20
 
Deadlifts
45x10
135x5
185x3
225x2
275x1
315x1
365x1
405x1
Added Straps
455x1
495x1
545x1
 
Deadlifts off Crash Mats (touch n go, straps)
425x5

Paused Ab Wheel
bwx12

Paused Side Plank Raises
bwx12/12

Stretching
 
Comments: I was actually pleasantly surprised with how easy going this week ended up being when it came to work. I think this is the first Thanksgiving where I’ve been able to train the same day since lifting at home and the home gym doesn’t close. I made it a point to ice the knees before (I always try to do so after training, it is the off days I am lax) to see if that can help things. It took a bit to fall asleep last night and I kind of didn’t want to get out of bed to do anything but I had to. Pretty much meant a late breakfast and then an early dinner so had a plan for starting training at 3:00PM. I didn’t get in my usual soft tissue work this week on my lower back (I have a foam roller and car buffer for soft tissue but my parents have percussive massager that seems to help more for the back). Lats were feeling Tuesday’s training. So for the workout, it wasn’t terribly involved one so it was ok giving myself 2.5hrs to finish and clean up. My left knee felt fine but my right knee was acting up on some things. My lower back and hamstrings didn’t feel as touchy and stiff as they did on Tuesday. High rep and light weight goblet squats to start things off. Knees a tiny bit achy but my muscles felt good. Almost rhythmic. Used to kind of loath the higher rep, light weight squat stuff as just exhausting for the sake of exhausting but they feel nice with low volume and alternating between squat to box and box squat. I don’t feel like they fatigue nearly as much or even at all at this point. However, I think that will come back the moment I stop them for like a week or two haha. So then on to the deadlift. I was going to put the main event or the most important but that is kind of biased as everything is important with the training to come together. I should rephrase to say that it was the thing I’d been thinking about since the last time I did these. Weighted in my mind as high priority. I impulse bought a deadlift jack (which I somehow didn’t put together exactly right, oh well) to help with loading the plates on so my lower back doesn’t get all pumped from bending over so much. Goal for today was to work up to 90% for a single based off how I felt. I felt I had a little more leeway this time with having 90% as opposed to 85% as I know I tend to push things and I don’t want to suffer burning out too soon on deadlifts. 1 because I hate it (it took months to get it back on track last two times) and 2 because I will be disappointed that that was all I could muster(sub 600lbs Craig? Come on now). So initially my conservative plan was to do 525lbs this time and then do 555lbs next time. I had told Mr. Westerling last time that despite wanting to be as strong as projected (545/585/615) that I was probably closer to 585lbs then I was 600lbs. He did suggest that if I felt good to try a more aggressive jump (535/575). I kind of told myself to see how things went do 40-50lbs more than last time. I was really trying to work on bracing off the floor today. Feeling tight. I was focused on a single pull for 225lbs and forgot it was for a double. Those first few sets the weights feel heavy to me. Like 135lbs feels heavier than 275lbs does by the time I get to it. Maybe because I know I’m just doing a single? Might be in my head but I felt like 405lbs didn’t move as fast as it should. I was at least not feeling like this was more lower back then usual to break the weight off the floor. As I got up in weight, it felt slower than I would’ve liked. I think with 405lbs not being something that would be super easy I can do 20 reps no problem feeling, I rocked with 455lbs too much. That bad habit of trying to get more leg drive that actually knocks the bar off my shins and makes the start out of position. I do wonder if straps make this more likely to happen or if I just wear straps when it gets to the point that I don’t trust my positioning and try to do this. In either case, I made it a conscious effort to not do that with 495lbs. It felt slow, not fast enough for my taste to say that I was confident that 50lbs more wouldn’t be a stilted herky jerky grinder of a lift. I wanted to think that it would be a smooth pull. After the fact I found it was just a tiny bit faster than my 495lbs pull from last time. I took a gamble and went for 545lbs. It would be 20lbs over the most bar weight for a pull from the floor I’ve done in over a year. 20lbs more than what I pulled first deadlift session at home when this whole COVID-19 restrictions started. I was nervous. What if I was wrong and this just stalled right off the floor and I mess up all these months of training clawing back to this? I don’t like to think about but I’m sure that if I missed this pull, I would’ve felt destroyed. I know that isn’t healthy. Small steps at a time. I was really focusing on this and getting everything tight. I ended up getting a cramp in my right upper abdominals before I went for the pull. I wasn’t going to let that distract me. I ended up being successful with this pull. Definitely more than 90% pull but not 95%. Probably somewhere between. I felt I had a double for sure, maybe an ugly as triple. I compared it to my 525lbs pull from March and it was about 1.5 seconds faster from start to lockout. I feel like I have 575-585lbs there for a max. But now I got to figure out what to be doing next time so as not to overdo it. That is my fear and paranoia with deadlift stuff right now. Moving on to the next thing. Crash mat deadlifts. Didn’t take nearly as long after my top pull to get ready for these haha. The plan was just 425lbs for 5. Much like last time, it felt heavy but moved well. I feel I adapted to these a bit as I was moving at a much quicker clip this time around. And the first rep didn’t feel like garbage. But that could be from not cooling off. Abdominal stuff after that. Same as last time with the holds and pauses but two extra reps for each set. Even with the slight abdominal cramp, these were pretty comfy. I figured it made more sense to cool down and then clean up and eat a big, big dinner and then finish up the stretching and recovery stuff.


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