Bench Press, touch and go
45 x 10
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 2
245 x 1
255 x 1
265 x 2 PR
Paused Olympic Squat, NO belt/sleeves
45 x 12
135 x 6
225 x 3
275 x 2
315 x 1
325 x 1 PR
Straight Bar Pull-up @186 + 35 x 3, 3
So I've been feeling a little off all day because my v. lateralis had been feeling tender around the knots that I roll continually. But I watched Jason Blaha's vids on training frequency and got it into my head that I should go train again.
Glad I went. PRs abounded. I am closing in on that three-wheel bench so quickly...I just can't believe my progress is still moving at the rate of 5 lbs/week!
I didn't feel like squatting too heavy tonight and I also didn't feel like wrapping up for anything. I'd also forgotten my knee sleeves at home. So I decided to use paused squats so I could go completely knee-naked without worrying about tearing up my knees with the bounce at the bottom. Got a big paused PR with 325:
In before someone points out that my ass could have been lower. I use modified elevated heels on the already high heels of my Ristos. My torso is really short in relation to my femurs. The higher heels effectively lengthen my shins and allow me to stay amazingly upright even though my spine is so relatively short. The tradeoff of this is that even at acute knee flexion I'm only a couple inches below parallel.
The lower the heel, the more below parallel I get, but without any extra benefit to the actual range of motion. And I have to lean forward more with my natural heel closer to the ground.
Simply, with my proportions, higher heels (artificially longer shins) and a higher bar placement (artificially longer spine) are the only way to stay fairly upright in the squat.
Recomping, Lower Dosing, Happy Testicles
I'm shifting plans a bit. I got a hint of testicular pain a couple nights ago. Just a hint. Nothing like I had when I'd upped the dosage of LGD 4033 to 12 mg a day for my lab rat. So since I only have 14 or so tablets left, I decided to go down to just one per day (4 mg) and extend the cycle out to two weeks. This gives me more time bring my squat up instead of trying to cram 40 lbs of improvement into seven days.
And the last time my testicles hurt (and were shrinking), just bringing down the dose made things right again.
Is it smart to step down to 4 mg after going at 8 mg? Who knows?
I'm not looking for increased performance so much at this point. I just want to step down gently instead of jumping off the cliff to zero LGD intake. I'll be coasting. These gains are supposed to very keepable. So I should be able to continue to make some progress over the next few days before it peters out.
Either way, I'd like to see some of this fat around my middle start to go away. I've been avoiding the necessary caloric deficit, but now I feel I'm ready. I'm reducing my lab rat's LGD 4033 dosage and the next SARM I'll be feeding him is MK 2877 in small amounts to keep on some muscle while in caloric deficit.
Persistent Vastus Lateralis Pain
Rolling my quads over the PVC pipe is definitely forcing out the knots in both my thighs. I am rolling several times per day. But the pain persists and is limiting my ability to pour effort into the squat. They are getting better (as evidenced by my ability to put up a PR on the paused squat last night), but it is slow going.
Funny, though...it's only on back squats. Front squats don't have the same stress on my quads.
Back Squats Are Better Than Front Squats For Lower Body Power
There was a time I thought that front squats could and should hold the esteem the back squat does. Experience has taught me that the back squat really is the king of lower body development. Front squats are a bit of a sideshow.
Front squats are kind of like overhead presses. They look cool and almost nobody ever does them outside of specialists like Olympic-style weightlifters. But while they are a special application of strength, the actual general strength in the involved musculature is far better built by back squats (in the case of the front squat) and bench presses (in the case of the standing press).
The full squat version of the clean is much more a strength move than the full squat version of the snatch. Leg strength won't limit a lifter out of the bottom of a snatch...but leg strength could indeed limit a lifter out of the bottom of the clean! So I get it now. Lifters don't need to work on overhead squats to make sure they have enough standing strength in the snatch; they DO need to get comfortable with standing up with heavy weight in the front squat position to help the clean.
Weight This Morning
As of 10 am September 24, 2015, I am down to 186 1/2 lbs. I want to get up over 200 lbs, of course, but I am happy to see that weight come slowly while my lifts go up more quickly. If I only weigh 185 when I squat over 400 and pull over 500, both without a belt, that's just fine by me. That would mean I was cutting fat as I got more muscular. And I really could stand to drop pound or three of fat right now to get rid of that his tiny, tiny spare tire I have.
My projected touch and go max is 280 right now based on the 265 x 2 I got last night (and they were solid as fuck). I am tempted to believe that I could get a touch and go of 300 this very cycle now that I'm extending things out a couple more weeks.
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