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

BW - 201

Hyper-extensions - 3 sets of 15-20

Pause Squat -
95X5
115X5
135X5

Klokov Press -
50X3
60X3
65X10

Deadlift -
135X5
215X3
250X3
280X3 (Fail on 4)
280X1X3

Chiro Crunches - 5 sets of 30

I like doing the body weight extensions instead of the reverse hyper right now.  I feel the muscle working a lot more, and I suspect it will be better to build the mind/muscle connection this way so that I can get more benefit out of the reverse hyper down the road.

Pause Squats still feeling fine.  Because I'm squatting all the time now and yet it's still the first cycle, it feels like I should be upping the weights already.  At least one more cycle at these lower weights, before I jump to the next % tier.  Although, I guess if I feel good I could jump next cycle...

My shoulders seem to be acclimating to the Klokov presses pretty quickly.  I could have gotten a couple more reps here, but just wanted to bump my 1RM a tad.  Next week I will probably go for AMRAP.

Well, as my weight had been inching downwards, so has my strength.  Bench was the first to go, and it fell of a cliff about a month back.  Pretty quickly into the diet, actually.  Then I suspected that my squats weakened a bit as well, but it was hard to say for sure, because I also switched to Paused for a few weeks, and then came back doing ATG instead of parallel, so it was hard to say for sure.  However, not being able to pull this 4th rep with 280 was a real surprise.  I pulled 285 for 5 in February, and 290 for 3 last month, I intended to get a solid 5 reps on the top set today.  4 stopped just off the ground.  I was pissed, and so I pulled a few singles with it to try and make up the volume.  I held the last single at the top for a couple of seconds, and thought I was going to pass out when I sat it down.

I can't help but think I've lost more muscle than is optimal for a diet over the last month.  I'm not going to panic, though.  In fact, after this week, I'm hoping to implement a very regimented diet for August and September, but I've got to sit down and plan it out.  I'm hoping that if I plan well, and execute, that I can lean up a lot more, and maintain strength levels wherever they are.

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

BW - 197

Pause Squats -
BarX10
95X5
115X5
135X5

Bench -
BarX10
95X5
115X3
145X3
160X4

Chins - BWX5, 10, 5, 4, 3

Couldn't get to my regular gym today, so I ponied up $10 to hit a World's Gym I was nearby.

I did a few of my reps on the top set on bench touch'n'go just to see.  It really is amazing what a difference the pause makes.

Got 10 chins which was nice.  Still have a little ways to climb back up to where I've been with them, though.

No low back or ab work.  Looked around the gym for a back extension bench or something but didn't see one.  Just decided to pack it up.

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

Defranco Hip Mobility

Pause Squats -
BarX5X2
105X3
155X3
185X3
210X3
235X2

Front Squat -
145X3
145X3
145XFailX2

RDL -
95X10
185X5
205X5
225X5

Back Extensions - 3 sets of 15

Here we go again.  Pause Squats went pretty well.  I held all my warm-up sets for several seconds in the hole, and then paused all my work sets normally.  235X2 is an all-around PR for the movement.  If I'm feeling okay next week (more on this in a sec), I will drop my training max per Paul Carter's suggestion, and try to get a few more reps on my top sets in the 2nd and 3rd weeks.

Front Squats on this cycle were only intended to be medium-heavyish, and a way to get more volume work on my quads.  145 is NOT a heavy weight for me on front squats in this rep range.  On the 3rd set, I fucked up my low back somehow.  This feels like the same fucking strain as last July.  I think it's from some combination of getting too far forward in the bottom and my hips tucking under at the bottom as well.  You know the weight isn't too heavy because after I dropped it, I cleaned it back to my fucking shoulders so I could set it back on the stands.  I tried to front squat it again, but it still hurt at the bottom so I stopped.  Fuck, fuck me.