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

Defranco's Agile-8 plus some of the Simple-6

Squats -
BarX10
95X5
135X3
155X5
175X5
200X8

BB Split Front-Squats - BarX12, 12, 10

BB Front Squats - 75X10, 85X10X2

Core Circuit X2 (toe touches, bicycle, low side-plank)

No PR available for me on the Squat.  I think since the couple of weeks I had off from squatting my depth has increased.  I think this is psychological carry-over from doing some pause squats and realizing I was getting significantly deeper on those than regulars.  The issue is that my max is almost certainly lower this way than previously.  On a couple of reps in my last work-set, I had to force myself to go all the way down, because instinct started to kick in and cut them higher (probably where I used to cut them). 

I have two options here:  1)  I can continue to work at the new depth, and accept that I will probably top out relatively soon and have to reset my training max, or 2)  I can attempt to go back to the previous depth so that I can go longer without resetting.  Honestly, I think either is acceptable, and the most important thing is consistency.  I'm tempted to go with option 1, because I'm concerned about fucking around with option 2 and wasting time and possibly even fucking myself up mentally as well as physically.  This will require more thought.

As a side note, whatever was going on with my grip and bar placement issues last time has completely resolved itself.  Everything felt fine as far as that's concerned.

I realized that one of the things I need to work out with the BB Split Squats is awkwardness of set-up and step out.  I'm shuffle stepping all over the place getting into position on these, and the sooner I clean this up, the sooner I'll be able to put more weight on the bar.  I believe this should be even simpler than full front or back squats.  Grip, lift, one step back with the off foot, squat.  Part of the problem, is my instinct to step-out with both feet which isn't necessary for this movement, and also not feeling confident in the placement of the back foot.  I decided that part of fixing this will be resetting for 30 seconds between each "leg."  We'll see how this works out next time.

Front squats are getting better.  85X10 is technically a PR, but I'm not far enough along with this lift to really celebrate that yet.  I screwed around last session and at the beginning of this one trying to grip the bar the way I've seen talked about in some articles (cross grip, letting the bar roll back onto the tips of the middle three fingers, etc.), and none of it felt good.  Finally I just said fuck it, gripped it thumb-less, kept my elbows up, and everything was fine.

First day back on the Defranco Core progression.  A little harder than expected, but I've had a few weeks off from direct Ab work, so I shouldn't have been surprised.