Q 10/30 Squats and Bench

After achieving the long term goals of 405 deadlift @10 and 20 chinups in a row @8, I began to focus more on some other priorities. Now I'm back to lifting, but with so many other things to do, I'm trying to cut down on my exercise time and don't quite mind somewhat slower progress.

Resetting after not lifting for ~3 weeks

Squats: 225 x5 x3 @7

Bench: 155 x5 x3 @8

Aaron (10/6)

Plate pinches: 3 5kg plates x4 sets x15-20seconds, 4 5kg plates x0 reps
Oly Squats: 320lbs x3 reps x3 sets
CoC: #1x5 reps, #2 x0reps x2 tries, #1 xleft hand was 3, right was 5
Pull-ups: 70lbs x3 reps x2 sets, 70lbs x2 reps
Fat bar Deficit Deads (10kg oly plates): 250lbs x5 reps, 255lbs x5 reps, 260lbs x5 reps
DB rows: 95lbs x5 reps x3 sets
rotator cuff stuff
weight: can't see any abs anymore, a week or several ago I could see the tops

Plate pinches were a bit disappointing, I didn't get 4 plates again. I have gotten them before. Well, not really disappointing, just an observation. Squats were actually kind of easy, the sticking point was not as pronounced as last time, which leads me to believe the paused squats I did last session actually helped. I'm excited to find the cause. I used exmgq's old advice that said the sticking point is actually lower than seen visually because momentum carried you further than you would have gone, which is why I thought my sticking point was actually at the bottom rather then in the middle.

I was really excited that I almost closed the CoC #2. I think I can have it next time if I warm up better and don't do plate pinches. Next time will actually be Monday though, not Friday. Its cool because my only grip work has been double overhand deadlifts since I've started deadlifting (alternating with hook when necessary) and plate pinches. Good to know they have a good initial carry over, but I still want to add CoC's for grip work in my routine. I'm positive my grip is largely responsible for this new-found strength thats taking over me.

Chins were bad, I did two negatives after the fail which I shouldn't have done, but the grip was wide and it didn't bother my shoulders, so I'm not afraid of this failure. I have no problem sticking to the same weight next time.

Deficit deads were easy. I'm going to create a bigger deficit next time. Grip was fine, I just had to reposition my hand every second rep or so. After a while, I'm going to do deficit snatch grip deads. My intensity is limited by my grip right now not the weight in the exercise. So, I want to choose an exercise so that my intensity allowed by my grip is close to the intensity allowed by the exercise. In other words, I want to make the exercise harder to justify the low weight being used thanks to the fat bar.

Rows were hard. My left side is a bit weaker than my right. I had clean form and only let the dumbbell hit the floor on the last rep of my last set. It was taxing on my grip.
New grip protocol is two heavy days corresponding to my lower body days on one week alternating with one heavy grip day corresponding to my one lower body day the other week (SBPR variant), and two really light days on that weeks upper body days.

Last note: I was reading Jason Ferruggia's stuff on cardio and his stance is similar to mine (and this boards) in that you should only be doing very high intensity cardio or very low intensity cardio. But we should be doing cardio 1-3 days a week. His idea of high intensity is not 30second sprints, but 2-5second sprints with enough rest to lower your heart rate, which might be anywhere from 1-10minutes.

Armed with new-found information and the discovery that its okay if I can only manage cardio one day a week when the alternative is nothing, I will be doing cardio on Saturdays, making me train 4 days a week. Cardio will be sprints or sled pushing (not hill sprints...no hill) or a burpee-chin up combo. I would like to do rope battling/sled combo since Ferruggia says the rope doesn't make you sore and I would like to put that to the test, but thats a bit time intensive. Yay for cardio!!!

I have to remind myself of a side goal which I can appropriately define: a strength training figher, or in better words: a fast twitch fighter.

Food for thought: he says lactic acid is the mortal enemy of fast twitch muscle fibers.