The First In Four Years...

So... This is a critique of my first full workout since March of 2005. No, that's not a typo. De Quervain's, an injured knee & a car accident. I averaged about one injury per year. The legs are like rubber... I didn't do a warm up. I figured that the weights weren't heavy enough to warrant one. Also, I didn't want to wear myself out. In this particular case I was right. I barely had enough juice to get through this session & if I'd done the ten minutes on the treadmill or something I don't think I would have survived the squats.

Overhead Press 1x5x45 (wu) \ 1x5x55 (wu)\ 3x5x65 (work sets)

High pulls 1x5x65 (wu) 1x5x75 (wu) \ 3x5x85 (work sets)
These were tough... because I didn't set the bar down between reps. The plates were too small. So I just lowered myself to the approximate height the bar would be at if I had 45-pound plates on it. I just slowly lowered down & hovered there. It actually felt fairly natural & I appreciated the stretch on the Achilles, calves & the back. I'm sure to be in agony by Friday.




Squats 1x5x45 (bar only wu) \ 1x5x55 (wu) \ 3x5x75 (work sets) These were tough as well. Not because of the weight. Just the bar actually felt pretty good & I was able to maintain control, but... I immediately noticed that my left leg is still lacking strength when compared to the right thanks to the accident. So I had to consciously compensate. I could actually see that my right leg was bending more (lowering me off-balance) so I had to force myself to push harder with the left leg to even my upper body out. I felt these almost immediately after the work sets were done. Especially in my left leg.

Bent over rows 3x5x65 (work sets) By this point I was pooped... and my back was getting tired. I pulled it ever so slightly on one of the work sets of high pulls. I decided to just hammer out three good sets. That was it. I'd been planning on neck & grip work... but at the end, after a full hour, I just wanted to eat dinner & collapse. Not necessarily in that order. I didn't even have the energy to cook anything so I went out & grabbed some fast "food". Of course, I'm regretting that now. I'm really craving a salad & a steak or something. I FEEL GREAT!!! So... I'm going to try to hit this three days per week for a while. If I can manage top add five pounds to the high pulls, squats & rows at each session & 2.5 to the presses I should be doing pretty well within about a month. That will put the squats up to 135, the high pulls at 145, the ohp & rows at 125. I'm most worried about the squats because of the difference in leg strength... but that's probably affecting the high pull as well. Every once in a while that darned knee injury sends me a reminder, but the training should strengthen that right up.

I have a LOT of ground to make up. That's the most discouraging part. I had been squatting my body weight... & closing in on the 225 lb. landmark. It's time to start working back to that. When I look at the old video recordings of those workouts I cannot believe how much muscle mass I've lost. The videos aren't even of my best lifts because I'd stopped taping in January of 05'. By March I was really starting to get in a groove. That was month six on the 5x5 program. The wrist pain became so great that I couldn't hold the bar at all.