Exerbabble for 3-3-7

Today’s Workout:

Deficit Deadlift (Off 6 inch platform):
4 @ 135 lbs
4, 4, 4, 4, F @ 225 lbs

DB Lunges:
3×8 @ 40 lbs (+5 lbs)

current bodyweight: 162.2 lbs (-.4 lb; weekly average of 162.1 lbs)

Hit failure on the fifth set. I actually got it off the ground a few inches, but that was all she wrote. I let it come back to the ground, and marked down the F on my notecard. Hrm. I wonder if we should be annotating “M” for miss rather than “F” for fail. :: shrugs ::

I noticed that in recent pulls, I wasn’t breathing properly. I caught myself breathing during reps. I forget when I noticed this. In fact, watching my breathing didn’t even occur to me until I got in the gym. I have a lot of little tidbits floating in my head when I pull. “Heels through the floor.” “Don’t waste too much energy lowering the weight.” Heh, I don’t drop the weight, but I do spend too much time gingerly lowering the weight.

Anyway, I tried bringing the bar over my feet, literally tucking them under the bar. This seems to be where the bar ends up when I lower it, so that should be my starting position. I took a deep breath, grabbed the bar, and exhaled as I pulled. I swear, I could feel a difference.

I had two delimiters for ending this phase. One: I pull 245 from a deficit. Two: I hit failure on deadlifts. There’s nothing complicated about this. I wanted to pull from a deficit, and see how far I could take it. There’s three reasons I wanted to do it like this. One: My sticking point seemed to be the floor. So I wanted to work the floor. Two: It had been a while since I’ve deadlifted. They say you can’t train the deadlift directly. I say my problem is partly mental. I needed to just get down and start pulling. Three: Again, it had been a while since I last deadlifted. I wanted to go slowly and deliberately, to make sure I didn’t hurt myself. My grip’s okay and my back feels dandy. If I had any blaring weak points in my posterior chain, I’d assume I knocked them all out in the process.

This coming Tuesday, I’ll return to the floor, and see what I’m made of. Then I’ll take a week off. (Technically six days, as I intend to lift on the following Monday.) I have no need to do any sort of max effort day for my upper body, I’ll just do it as usual. I’ll probably do a little dicking around in the gym next Saturday, but only a little bit. I’m overdue to show my dad a new workout. I decided I can’t see him making it through HGM, so I’ll just try to create something he can’t screw up.

Adjustments: While 255 lbs would break my PR, I’m hoping for 275 lbs. I’ll probably do:

3 @ 135 lbs
2 @ 225 lbs
1 @ 255 lbs
1 @ 265 lbs
etc

While I do find subsequent repetitions easier than the first, and do like being able to do exercises for multiple reps, I don’t want to tire myself out needlessly. Singles it is.