LRB 365: Big-15. Phase 1. Week 6. Squat

BW - 202

Squat -
BarX10 (paused)
95X5 (paused)
115X5
145X4
175X3
215X2
245X1

205X16, 6

Bench -
BarX10
95X5
135X3
155X2
175X2
185X2

Deadlift -
135X5
185X3
225X2 (mixed-grip from here)
275X2
315X2
325X2

I had to take three days off from the gym before this session, so I was hungry as hell to lift.  I've also got this next week off before I start the 2nd Big-15 cycle.  So I decided that doing leg curls and BW lunges after my squatting wasn't going to cut it.  I realized later that this is the first time I've ever done all 3 lifts in one session.

Squats were okay.  After looking at the videos I started taking recently, I think my mechanics are way off for low-bar.  I've been breaking hard at the knees and they've been traveling past my toes, my torso is too vertical, and my depth way past parallel.  Basically I think I've been high-bar squatting with a low-bar setup.  I started trying to correct that with this session and taking video of the low-rep work-sets (form breakdown is pretty common for me with high rep squats, and that's why I didn't video those):

A little bit of progress here, although these still "feel" high to me despite all being well past parallel.  I'll keep working on this.

For bench and deadlift, I looked at my rep records and decided that I had plenty of head-room to set 2-rep PRs in both.  This was NOT working up to a 2-rep max.  I simply could see from the data that I was much stronger than my best 2-rep lifts.

With bench the 185X2 was smooth and fast as hell.  It actually felt easier than the 175X2 before it.  Right now 185 projects to be around my 5 rep max, and it definitely felt strong.  This was great.

For Deadlift, it was a little bit different.  For one thing, the previous two lifts, particularly the squats, had taken some wind out of my sails.  For another, Pandora would only play hip-hop and punk on my gym station, and I really wanted some Slayer hahahahaha.  So 335X1 is my best ever deadlift, and I've hit that a couple of times.  However, I've done 315X5 also, and 315X1 a million times and fast.  So I was pretty sure that it should be there for me without much trouble, but Deadlift is such a beautifully enigmatic monster, that there was a niggle of concern.  I knew it would be mixed grip so I switched to it early.  Chalked up well for the last two sets.  315X2 was fast and easy, but my back and glutes were feeling fatigued, and the mixed-grip was feeling unusually foreign.  I wish I'd grabbed a video for myself though, because the 325X2 was smooth and authoritative.  I love deadlifting.

Next day, and I'm pretty damn sore from all this.