Lifting for 1-12-11

A nice snowy winter. I’m loving it. Gym openned at 1PM, so I took the morning to relax and play a little Dragon Quest IX. Did a little bit of shoveling, but I doubt it effected my workout at all.

Squat:
5 @ 45 lbs, 4 @ 95 lbs, 3 @ 135 lbs, 2 @ 185 lbs
5, 3, 3 @ 205 lbs (+10 lbs)

Overhead Press:
5 @ 45 lbs, 3 @ 65 lbs
3×5 @ 90 lbs (+5 lbs)

Power Clean
5 @ 45 lbs, 3 @ 95 lbs, 1 @ 115 lbs
5×3 @ 125 lbs (+10 lbs)

Chin-ups
8, 7, 3 @ BW

difficulty: hard

Just went looking through past logs to verify if this was a new 5RM or not. Nope. My best effort during StrongLifts was 5, 5, 5, 4, 3 @ 215 lbs. The following workout I absolutely BOMBED, hitting a mere 2, 3, 3 @ 215 lbs before giving up on it for the day. That marked the last day I ‘followed the damn program’. I was feeling ‘crushed’ by the weights, I wrote in my annotations. I also felt like my depth was going to crap consistently.

Of course, the timing of all of this lines up precisely with when I met my current girlfriend. Go figure. I figured I was forgiven for letting something else take precedent in my life for once.

Past is in the past. My focus now is each individual workout, and keeping perspective. If I could do it over again, I probably would have taken a workout off, and deloaded again.

No absolute failure today. Just had a mental block after the third rep of the second set. I had that moment where I had ascended, I was ready to take my breath, but I hesitated. It’s okay to take a second to transition between reps, but it felt like I waited a second too long. That I was just standing there with the bar on my back, which is a waste of energy.

I still have a pretty good attitude. No issues getting depth. Just focused on destroying the weight. I’ll get those reps in the next workout or two. 5 lb increments from here on in.

No issues with overhead press. I tend to hit around 95 lbs, then stall. We’ll see what happens. Even hitting a mere 105 lbs would be a record.

Power cleans are getting heavier, and it felt like I had to focus on “catching” the bar a little more. Not a squat clean, by any means. Just making sure I’m in a semi-squat stance when I get under the bar. Fourth set, second rep, I nearly missed catching the bar. Feel confident enough to add the full 10 lbs next workout.

Lost two repetitions on my last set of chins. I just had nothing left, I couldn’t lift myself. Chin-ups and pull-ups are weird like that.