11-24-12: Garage Gym Squat and Bench
Squat
Worked up to 10x300 (1 rep PR, plus no belt-300x9 was done with a belt):
Squat 300x10 - YouTube
Bench
2x10x185 paused
1x12x185 paused:
Paused bench 185x12 - YouTube
That's it. Been doing pull ups throughout the last few days since my dad got my brother a pull up bar that pops right in and out of the door frame, so I've just been doing pull ups whenever. Probably gotten about 50-100 reps total so far. Had a really great day today, this morning I met up with my training partner from the summer, who's gained about 20 lbs since I last saw him, and also gained a lot of strength. Gave him a technique retutorial on overhead press and did some reps with about 60 lbs. Picked up an iphone today, which I recorded the videos on, it's really nice, I love having a good camera, good ipod, and good phone all in 1 device. So the videos were easy to upload mobile right after I recorded them. Trained in my friend's garage today, all he had was 300 lbs of plates so I took that for a ride on squats, got 10 reps which is a 1 rep PR, and with no belt! That makes it really significant. Probably could have had 12-14 with a belt. The weight felt really heavy without it, but I still had a lot of strength. Technique didn't feel as good as usual because I've gotten into the bad habit of using the mirror as a crutch, so I need to start feeling my form more than looking for it in my reflection. Still, I like the video, it's got loud metal, a dirty mancave/garage gym complete with a punching bag, tools, car parts, and a bruce lee poster (not shown), and of course close long time friends I haven't seen since I left San Diego. My friend who's 6'8 makes my 5'11 self look super short in the squat video. About technique though, even though it felt off, I'm happy to see that high bar works pretty well for me, I'm confident that with a mirror and belt my technique is really really good, if it looked this good without those things, and with it feeling really sh*tty. Just gotta stop using those as a crutch. Bench I was really happy with, this bench was awkwardly high instead of awkwardly low like the ones at my college gym, but I was able to get some half decent leg drive, and looking at my bar path it looks great. I'm happy my strength is going back up, considering my unpaused PR with this weight is 15 reps, so 12 paused is pretty good. Can't wait to peak my strength in June and see where I"m at. Unfortunately everything still feels really heavy without wrist wraps. Either way I had a good day overall. After this I ate about a pound of steak along with a bunch of bread and a can of DR. Pepper. Good post workout meal, by dirty bulking standards. Oddly enough my weight seems to have been dropping since I came here, only about 202 right now and I was 205 on the same scale the night I arrived, after not eating for 7 hours on the train. I guess I should just disregard what my weight and appearance is and just focus on performance, since that's all that really matters, and when performance in place, everything else falls into place. I don't think my cardio is very good right now but my strength is definitely there. Might start incorporating steady state cardio after a conversation I had with a bodybuilder, and after measuring myself at a pretty high blood pressure on a possibly faulty, but possibly accurate, blood pressure machine. Lots of ideas storming in my head right now.