Strength Went Well, Lowered Squat Weight Before Failing Today
My stomach has been feeling slightly off all day long today. Actually it’s been feeling off a bit since I ate supper last night but tolerable. I don’t know if I ate something that was a bit off or maybe it’s just one of those things that happens sometimes. Naturally now that I am done lifting it’s feeling better.
I just decided it would be a good idea to lower my squat weights for today before and not pushing towards failure. Sucks because although the other day at the 260 pounds was pretty tough I felt like I had at least the sets of 265 pounds in me today. Due to my stomach being iffy and the fact that I am thinking I will do my Crossfit total next week to see where I stand currently strength wise I thought it’s best to lower the weight now. I did a really easy three sets of five at 195 pounds. Hey it’s still 10+ pounds over my body weight so I’m good with it! They felt really great and solid but with it being a light weight for me it should have been. It was good to at least get some movement in today.
The bench press was a moderate to heavy weight at 170 pounds. No where near failure though so I stuck with the weight that was supposed to be done today. For some unknown reason my stomach is actually starting to feel better now. These felt pretty easy unlike last time where the weight was felt fairly heavy.
The good mornings for three sets of 10 went well at 85 pounds. They felt pretty decent too. By this time my stomach is actually feeling find after lots of gas. Maybe that was the problem.
After that I worked on some strict chest to bar pull ups. Biggest set was 8 and no doubt about it chest to bar. Between me getting lighter and stronger these are just becoming easy as long as I am not too fatigued.
After resting for a few minutes and drinking my protein I decided to do some light overhead squats like I did yesterday. I only used Molly’s 35 pound bar for them but it seems that the exercise is finally clicking for me. I really struggled with them for so many years. My hips would shift just below parallel for no reason known to me. I knew it was wrong and I knew when I was doing it but just didn’t seem to be able to figure out how to stop it. I even worked with a coach on it and he could tell I knew it was wrong and after trying some stuff he basically said that I’ll have to figure out my body and how to stop it. He was a great coach. He saw the entire movement.
The other major pitfall I had with the overhead squats was my one elbow would almost always bend a bit so I never was able to or willing to go all that heavy. That too seems to have resolved it self unless I’m not even on the bar. My best guess with that is that my shoulders have tightened up in the right places and loosened up in the other places so it’s more balanced. I think I’ll keep working at these with an empty bar for a while and ingrain better movement patterns. Another thing of note with the squats is I am now maintaining a very upright torso.