Squats, the final frontier. These are the attempts of the weakling brigade. Their six-week mission: to explore new records, to seek out new techniques and new PRs, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
In short: Failure Tuesday
Squat:
275x2 @7 very fast
315x2 @8 fast
/* belt on */
365x1 @10 felt awful, belt totally messed up this squat.
I followed Danny's and Gordon's advice and tried another belt, Gordons 13mm Inzer double prong. I can wear it loosely, and that feels better as the next sets showed:
315x1 @8 (belt test)
365x1 @9
390 FAIL (bystanders claimed I went to deep - "that's what THEY said")
390x1 @10 (PR by 5 lbs, definitely a grinder)
405 FAIL
After all, I have to ask myself if I need to buy a new belt or if it just a belt per se messing me up. As of now, I tend to believe the latter: My lever belt proved to be ok during deads and also during box squats, it just felt awkward after slapping it on for the 365 rep. I will run a volume cycle with belt, using the latter as soon as 275 are on. Att the same time, I feel bad to including "a crutch" on light weights, but I won't learn how to use a belt properly if I don't include it into my warm up sets...
I skipped rack pulls and leg presses since my lower back actually started cramping already during warm ups. This is no excuse since the squats felt fine, I just did not want to exaggerate things more than needed.
Also, my next intensity cycle will not be a 3-week PR hunting program. I plan to have a deload/speed week after volume, and then ease into triples, doubles, and finally singles. But then again, this does not sound like fun, so I might just do stupid, nerv-wrecking singles anyway!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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-- I think that there is no reason to dismiss a 5 lbs PR. In one year, you can probably fit 7-8 cycles of RTS, so we are talking about 35-40 lbs.
ReplyDelete-- It's tempting to hunt for PRs, but I also learned that doing max singles for 3 weeks is not necessarily productive. The objective is not to set temporary PRs, but to get stronger in the long run. We probably need more experience with RTS to plan the intensity blocks better.