Squat Day!
I have been enjoying my change up in strength programming. I’m moving heavier weights with more intensity I feel, and it’s been less monotonous for sure. Today I am beginning my third cycle after succeeding the first two cycles. I’m not deloading yet. Maybe after this cycle.
Since it’s the first day of the cycle, I am doing back squats for 5+ and then a lighter weight back squat for twenty reps. I like the twenty reps thrown in, since I feel like that’s been a major help for me. The weight was fairly light for the five plus set, so I wound up getting ten reps at the two hundred and thirty-five pounds until I called it. It’ll get more challenging in time, since I was fairly conservative with my training max. They felt great and looked even better. It helps that I was feeling pretty energetic today after a good night’s sleep.
After finishing my AMRAP set, I lowered the weight down to the programmed hundred and eighty pounds for the twenty reps. I expected this to be fairly easy, and it was easy. My reps each looked very mechanical, which I was pretty happy about.
Shortly after I finished my lifting, I decided to get a WOD in for today. I went with one from a couple of weeks ago, which was double unders or hop overs (Don’t get me started on how hopping laterally over something is not a similar stimulus as double unders.) It was small sets of them at least, so I was able to move fairly quickly. Sandwiched between those were dumbbell deadlifts and dumbbell push presses. I only used the thirty-five dumbbells out of laziness. I didn’t feel like picking up the forties. I went all unbroken, so I was happy with the WOD.
When Molly got home we did our bro session which felt great today. The inside of my elbow has been giving me a little shit, so I kept the dumbbell bench weight a bit lower today and stuck with using the forties. It feels less angry than yesterday, so I want to keep it going that direction. They felt good. I could have used the fifties, and will next time. I was more aggressive with the shoulder presses than I have been recently and used the forties for the sets of ten strict presses. They felt surprisingly easy for me today. Maybe the earlier push presses in the WOD, still my shoulders warmed up. Since I had the forty pound dumbbells sitting there in front of my I figured why not give them a shot for my curls. I did my four sets of ten with that weight. I wouldn’t say it was easy, but I also wouldn’t say it was difficult. Strangely enough, that seemed to stretch out my elbow a bit.