Tuesday! And I will continue to rest. On Thursday I'll ease back in with a Pull Day [Weighted Chin, GHR, and DB Row], then Press Day [Standing Press, Close Grip Bench, Lateral Raise] on Saturday, and finally Stand Day [Back Squat, Leg Press] on Sunday, at which point I really hope my hip is fully healed. My shoulder already feels about 95% better.

Last week I bottomed out at 185 lbs and since then I've been back on the upswing. I was waking up at 187 for a few days and today I woke up at 188. I'm shooting for a solid pound per week till the meet. I should easily come in tight and strong and under 198.

Quarter Squatting for Vertical

I've read a lot of stuff (I'll provide all the links in the footnotes to this space eventually) that has me wanting to quarter squat heavy. There is still plenty of resistance to the idea that quarter squats have any value at all, much less value the specific result for which I'm looking: increased vertical jump height and decreased sprint times. But I'm willing to experiment on myself for this.

It's just a few weeks of adding these supra-maximal partials. At the very least, these will make me more comfortable with handling bigger weights and maybe strengthen my connective tissue and make it more resilient for full squatting. I'm doing these off pins and from a dead stop at the start of every rep. I will not be trying to reverse direction with these kinds of loads!

I've increased my squat a lot in the past few years and my vertical remains around 24". I got it up to 28"-30" back around 2008-2010 when I trained very specifically for it with accommodating resistance. But the full squat on its own isn't the key. My upper thighs are about 24.5" around right now (left is still slightly bigger than right, but much better than the 23"/19" split from years ago) and my vertical is hovering around 24". I'll use a "switching" speed/power phase after the meet to see how much higher I can jump after increasing my quarter squat 100 lbs.

Deadlift Highlights and Goals

I was looking over my records. My best ever conventional deadlift performance was 500 x 2 with no belt back on October 30, 2016 when weighed ~195 lbs.

I did get 495 x 2 at only 189 no belt the next year, Aprl 23, 2017. 

And recently --September 23, 2017-- I got back up to 495 x 2 at only 185, but I very much needed a belt for that on that particular day because my lower back was very, very tired.

The last two at 189 and 185 are comparable. I got the same weight for a double both times, but I needed that belt to do it at 185. Still, the belt generally gives me only 10 lbs on my conventional deadlift. 

The next time I deadlift, I will probably weigh 190 lbs. I absolutely must set an all-time personal record on that day with at least 515 for a double. Frankly, I really want 535 x 2 with a belt.

Shoulder Impingement

My gluteal pull is getting better and the pain is subsiding. But my shoulder pain remains pretty bad. I initially thought maybe I dinged it with the bench press, but I'm now thinking that it was those couple sets of lateral raises that caused the problem. Thing is I can overhead press just fine, but I did something wrong with those laterals. It's lifting my arms out to the side tht is causing me pain now.