Going Smolov Potato

Once again I'm staring down the barrel of the Smolov gun. If I start on Monday, then my test day will coincide with the November 7 meet.

I'm sticking with the high bar squat. I will squat as few pounds less this way than I would with low bar, but I think that gap has gotten a lot smaller because of my practice with high bar and front squats.

Plus I'm using wraps which confer more benefit to high bar. I could still probably get 10-20 lbs more with low bar, but I just really, really hate how much of a good morning my low bar becomes at max loads.

I am, however, planning to switch to the sumo deadlift for the meet. The conventional does test back strength better, but it also invites more back rounding because omother more bent over start position means a much bigger moment arm. My back is safer with sumo and I can use my quads more to lift more.

I'd dropped sumo training in large part because I did some long-term damage to my left hip when I relaxed on a paused squat last year. But last night I worked about an hour on the sumo pattern till the pain started to go away.

The sumo actually reintroduced some flexibility that I'd been missing! My hips feel better than they have in months.