5/3/1 Full-Body: Cycle 5. Week 2. Squat

BW - 200

Squat -
BarX10 (long pause at bottom)
95X5 (shorter pause)
95X5
135X5
175, 200X3
225X8

Front Squats -
BarX5
95X10, 10, 10

T-Bar Rows -
25X10, 10
50X10
60X10
70X12

Dips - BWX11, 6, 6, 5, 4

225X8 on Squats is an all-around PR since I reset my form.  Felt good.

Looking back, I realize that a lot of the times I've tweaked my back I was either front squatting, or I had front squats in my program.  This made me a little paranoid, so I did some research, and worked hard on my form in this session.  The two cues that I focused on were breaking with the knees, and allowing them to travel forward to make the descent, and leading out of the hole with my chest.  This seemed to work pretty well, and everything felt tight. 

I also changed my grip from cross-arm, back to hands under the bar.  I toyed around with this a few ways, gradually moving to thumbless, and then actually settling on pinkie around the bar for the last two sets.  This creates a sort of "neutral grip" that seems unlikely, but seemed to actually work out okay, and elbow pain I started to feel during thumbless sets dissipated by the last set.  Gonna keep the weight light on these, and use them as my BBB back-off sets beginning next cycle.

T-Bars are weak for some reason, but I think I need to go back to doing an over-warm up on these as that had worked well previously, and worked well for Pendlays as well.  If I do that, and they are still weaker than before I did all those Pendlays, then I may need to second guess either that movement or my approach to it.

11 reps at 200 is an all-around PR since I started pausing my dips at the bottom of each rep.