Sunday, February 4, 2018

goal in progress



It's fairly well established at this point that I am terrible at updating regularly. I always intend to, but before I know it the days turn into weeks then into months. As more time passes, there is more to say yet I'm never sure where to start. I guess we will just jump in here.

On January 1st I sent in my money and officially registered for a powerlifting meet in April. No turning back now. I was more excitement than nerves until I started reading the meet rules and imagined how the day would go...that's when my hands started getting sweaty and I felt the need to go to the restroom. Ah, the nerves. They finally showed up.

I'm training smart and training hard. I've managed to avoid the hell that is the flu this year(knock on all the wood things, as the winter ain't quite done with us yet), but I did get a week long viral thing, and I'm currently getting well from a nasty cold that lasted just under a week. I fought the urge to return to training early, giving myself a day more rest than I wanted to. Time is precious, and I can't afford to be stupid about it. Better to take the extra rest as opposed to returning too early and staying down longer. As simple as these type of decisions might seem, I struggle with them. I'm stubborn to say the least.

The biggest change is that I've started benching twice a week. I squat twice, bench twice, and deadlift once. My accessory work has changed as well--I do what supports those three main lifts, and trimmed the fat that I could. The second bench day replaced my overhead press--I now do OHP on occasion instead of dedicating an entire session to it. I pummel shoulders with incline bench, lat raises, etc. Adding to my bench volume has made a significant difference in overall execution and the amount of weight I can press. As a matter of fact, I beat my old bench press max today by 3 reps. Totally unexpected, but a big victory for me. To me, it feels like a victory when I gain evidence that my programming is working. It gets a little harder to obtain those milestones the longer you lift--I'm a long way off from those beginner gains. The rep pr is quite nice, but my focus has been more on maintaining form lately.

There's still a lot of volume being done. I finish with heavier reps in the 1-3 range, mainly to lock in that form. As time crawls closer to meet date, I'm also doing more pause bench and squatting with commands--I am hellbent on having all white lights for my attempts. The more I can lock that into my training, the better accustomed I will be to it when it's time to compete. It's a nice new challenge to factor in, keeping me on my toes.

My hands are shredded. My body is often sore in one way or another. When I lay in bed at night, my quad muscles occasionally jump without provoking. But I love it. I love it so much. When I've had a rotten day, the gym is my sanctuary. Hell, when I have a great day I still look forward to my sessions--it makes the great days even better. I'm happy. I'm hungry. I'm working hard on the goal in front of me and that makes all the difference.

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