5/3/1 Log: Cycle 1. Week 1. Deadlift

Defranco's Agile-8 and Simple-6

RDL - BarX10, 95X5

Deadlift -
135X5
180X5
205X5
235X5
135X10X5

Full Hanging Leg Raise - BWX3, 5, 5

I had planned to do Bench this day because I wanted to keep my back fresh for my show this weekend, but I got to the gym and couldn't talk myself out of pulling. To be on the safe side, I did both Defranco warm-ups to try and make sure everything was ready to go.

Everything went fine with the work-sets. Because I'm trying to focus on Squats, I didn't try to go for additional reps on my top set. However, I did decide to try out Boring But Big for the assistance. Normally for that program, you rep out 5X10 at between 40-50% of your training max. Rather than think too much about it, I checked to see if 135 was in that range for my true max, found it was, and settled on that. No muss, no fuss. Guys talk a lot about how much BBB for DL's destroys them, but I didn't find that to be the case. Probably because I'm using relatively light weights, although I did feel a bit light-headed after the last two work-sets. I think I could probably go a bit heavier if I wanted, but again, I'm focusing on Squats.

With BBB on DL day, and Split and Front Squats on Squat day, I've had hamstring soreness for a few days following the work-outs. Prior to this, I had been doing direct hamstring work for 6 months. Until my hamstrings adapt and stop being sore following these work-outs, I don't see any reason to do additional direct hamstring work as I had originally planned. That may end up being one more week, or it could be the full cycle or longer. I'll just have to wait and see.

Add full hanging leg raises to the list of things I clearly suck at. Those X5's were ugly as hell. Since they're so bad, I'm thinking about super-setting sets of 3-5 in between all my other sets on this day the same way I do chins on upper-body days. I'll try that next week and see how it feels.