Deth

Last night I slept surprisingly good. It was much warmer than it has been just about all year, and I sleep best on cooler nights. The low was only in the lower seventies. Regardless, I slept well and woke up feeling great this morning.

I had been debating on whether I wanted to take a week to recover from my 5/3/1 or get right back into it. I knew only the back squats were increasing in weight, and I was looking forward to giving them a go. I’m in lifetime PR territory with those for now. To be honest, when I get into this range of weights, the less time I have to think about it the better.

About eight this morning or so is when I decided to get changed and get into the home gym to start pushing some weight. It was late enough, plus it’s warm and very humid today. That’s not ideal weather for me, but there was a nice south-easterly wind, so I could let that come in the door.

The light warm up sets great for me today. Unlike the recent times when my knee’s been nagging me a bit, that’s not an issue at all today. I worked up in weight fairly quickly today. I did force myself t o rest longer between the heavier sets, but I didn’t want to. The lifts were feeling great. I was moving well. I was on point mentally for the squats too, which is a rarity in itself.

Finally, I got to my AMRAP set. Today called for five plus reps at two hundred and eighty pounds for me. If I made the five reps, it was going to be a lifetime PR for five. Strangely enough, it wasn’t even in my head today.

When I loaded the weight on the bar, I double-checked to make sure I added right and didn’t load it unevenly. This weight is too heavy to take any chances. When I first unracked it, the bar felt too light, so I racked it and then triple checked the weight. It felt lighter than the warm-up weights did. That was a far cry from normal, where these heavy sets feel crushingly heavy. I walked it out, then took my time to focus and get set for my reps. The first one was very explosive and easy. The second was great too. The third one I turned into a pause and shifted a hair forward on the way up. It was barely noticeable in the video. The last two that I did felt pretty explosive too. As expected, they were slower than the earlier ones, but they still looked great. I stopped at five to end on a good note and on a lifetime PR. It was five more pounds than my last one for five reps last year.

The set certainly got my heart rate sky-high. I think I got an adrenaline rush from it too. If I were to go by what the video showed, I almost certainly had another good rep or two in me. Now that I am done, I feel drained and crashed, but I just comprehend how good the heavy weight felt while I was doing it. If only I could have been doing whatever it is that I’m doing to make this weight feel so great ten years ago when I was younger. Oh well, I’ll take it and be happy with it now. Lifetime PRs in my late forties? I’ll take it!

Music today was Motorhead.