8/23/10

Well today was a decent day of training. Carrying on my current program of a half-Smolov squatting routine with the other power lifts.

Today was 4 sets of 9 squats with 245. This set up is deceptive, considering that its only four sets, but the high volume on each set inadvertantly kills me. The first two sets weren't that bad, but the last two were quite challenging. In particular, for some reason on the third set, I had to miss the last repetition because I had to adjust my arm midway through the set and when I reset my hand on the bar, I must have been at an odd angle because my shoulder was in great pain towards the end of the set. That being said, I managed all of the other squats to parallel, though on the last set I had to really dig within myself to find the strength to complete it all.

After this was bench press, which I believe I did upwards of 7 sets of. As per usual, I got sidetracked by some of the gym members as I was benching, but I was able to grind out 195-205 (was using a different bar that seemed heavier than normal) for about 4-5 of those sets for 3-4 repetitions. I think what I need to do is focus on decent volume with these lifts in order to progress them.

Which leads me to an issue I've been having. I feel I'm getting stronger yet I've not the numbers to show for it yet. I think what is happening is that I am hitting a decent top set but not staying there long enough. After looking into the Doug Hepburn course I got recently, I see that Doug would often work up to a heavy poundage he could handle for 1-3 in a way similar to me, but he would then take that heavy poundage out for another five sets of 1-3 after finding it. This is something I haven't done, but probably should, as I think the more time I spend in the higher state of strength, the better I'm going to get.

But we'll see. Its all theory at the moment.

In between

Well as always, I come back to my blog realizing that months have gone by and I haven't updated it. But increasingly I'm finding it harder and harder to have a place to put my thoughts without public scrutiny. Facebook isn't really safe, considering all the people I am trying to tip-toe around are on there. So after all, I finally might be bringing this blog back to life as I intended. While probably most of the posts will be just a training diary, I do want to practice writing about the ins and outs of what I'm doing for the sake of having articles available.

But as it is, its hard for me to quantify all of my thoughts on the subject. I've never sat down and tried to codify the rules of what I do, let alone really specify just how I push myself through adversity in the training hall. But yet, there IS something there, something that is guiding me through it, I just have yet to really spell it out. But increasingly I am finding that I need to have a more concise plan as far as indoctrinating others into my way of life considering thats more or less what personal training is really about, changing people's lifestyles. Not that they have to live exactly as I do, but if I can at least instill virtues of self discipline, confidence, and restraint in this age of decadence and greed, then I guess I'll have truely done what I set out to do in the first place: make the world just a tiny bit nicer.

So we'll see. I'm hoping I can keep to it this time.