5/3/1 Log: Cycle 2. Week 1. Deadlift

Defranco's Agile-8 +lat stretch

Deadlift -
135X5
155X5
185X5
215X5
240X6
165X10X5

Hanging Leg-Raise - BWX5, 5, 6

Pull felt great tonight, and 240 is a 6 rep PR.  Continuing to focus hard on form, I zeroed in particuarly on pulling the bar into me, or "falling backwards."  I did this through the Boring But Big sets as well.  Also on those I had a light-bulb moment on repping form.  Previously, I had been bringing my hips up and then back down hard at the start of every rep.  Today I just kept everything really tight, no "bouncing," and the only resetting I did between reps was to take the slack out of the bar after each dead stop.  I feel much better and more confident this way, and my back felt great through the whole session.

Also regarding the BBB sets, I just realized that 165X10 is a 10 rep PR for me in the pull.  My 10 rep PR projects closer to 225, so it's not a big "whoo-hoo" moment, but it's still cool to technically set two different PR's with one lift in the same session.  I was already planning on doing some progression with these sets, and that's more motivation. I was pretty wiped between sets, but I might still try creeping up a little the next few sessions.  I don't want to kill myself on accessory work, but 170 would be about 60% of my training max for this cycle.  Might as well see if that nice round % can work cycle to cycle.

I've also started icing my back when I get home on DL days.  This is based on things I've read over at Chaos and Pain.  The idea is to drastically reduce inflamation following a training session.  This supposedly allows/squeezes toxins out of the traumetized area.  Then I take a hot shower with the idea being that the heat encourages new blood and nutrients to flow back into that area.  I might start following this with some time on a hot pad however, as further research suggests that a shower might not provide enough intensity or duration to get the desired effect.  Because I've had so many low-back strains, I'm trying to any precautions that are reasonably with time and budget constraints.

Leg-raises felt smoother even though I couldn't get many more reps than last time.