Thursday, November 17, 2005

Wk1: ME Squat/DL

Two days ago, I was emailing John McDonald and I said two things that made me think real hard about the ME movement to kick off this cycle. One, that I should just squat to get my confidence back and because I've been doing boxes too much over a long stretch of time. The other thing I said was that one should work what they are not good at in order to get better.

Squats: 105x6, 125x5, 145x4, 165x3, 185x3, 205x3, 225x3, 245x3 (3RM). I was gonna wave train this but thought it best to just do a 3RM (per the Manual) to regain my skill and build myself back up. Good call. On the 245, that just about killed me - - - I was seeing stars on the last rep, I thought of that chick trying to crawl out of well in THE RING!!!! Today, I feel beat up. This will pay off, I know, just may want to do things to increase my GPP and aerobic capacity. After a long while without squatting or deadlifting, I knew I was gonna be sucking wind.

Bulgarian Split Squats: 3 sets of 8. I did these only with bodyweight because I've never done them and my balance was an issue. Tough enough for a newbie, even tougher after squats.

Arched Back Good Morning: 3 sets of 10 at 115, 125, and 135. Squats took it out of my lower back, too, but these weren't too bad because I was not holding the bar in my hand.

Trap Bar Shrugs: 94x10, 114x10, 124x10, 144x7.

Hoist Calf Press: 35x10, 45x10, 55x10, 65x8.

Lying Leg Thrusts: 3 sets of 8.

Barbell 21s: 3 sets at 40 lbs. Didn't get much out of the hammer curls on Monday, decided to do barbell movements for biceps from now on for this cycle.

2 comments:

John said...

Nice job on the 3RM, Alberto... keeping working sets of three (say 8x3x75%) alternated with a higher rep (6-8) day and you'll build your squat back up in no time.
Nice choice of assistance work too... the split squats will help with your stabilizer muscles and goodmornings are always worthwhile.

Alberto said...

I still have speed squats on DE day plus 10 singles in the DL for speed, and I'll probably just use the split squat for my single leg movement but just keep adding weight each week. They were really challenging: they burned like hell, made me pant, and even made my glutes burn. I felt like a weakling with these, so I've gotta fix that.