Day 4 week 14

Humid, warm, cloudy day in Sandy Eggo. Good day to hit the rumpus room. For that matter, when's a bad day? Day 4, too -- squat day.

I was in a piss-poor mood all day, ready to hurt someone. Not sure why those things happen, but my inspiration is elsewhere this week. A long way away. So it's time to knuckle down and channel my energies into something that does me some good. My pain of choice is time under tension, from which I will either break or build. Thankfully, everyone in the office understood the choice I had to make and got out of the way as I left a little early. Love those guys.

Started with AtLarge Results and the Shelby mix, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps, eventually knee sleeves. I wore Ace briefs for the squatting. The last couple of weeks have been so slack, the Aces are a little easier to get into today. So be it. They would be tough to get out of at the end of the session.

I Spiked again. I love the rush, particularly coupled with a good snort of Tork. Makes me want to break something. Yeah, I said that last time and it's still applicable today. Kaboom. I torked a lot today, too.

I did a lot of dynamic work and a lot of bar work to warm up before getting to it. My right shoulder was a little unhappy with the angles at first and I knew the squats were gonna kill, so I did my dynamic time like a good boy. For once.

All exercises were 3 sets of 5-7 with about 180s between.

Military press, seated, fat bar: 3 x 7 reps with last week's weight. I raised the seat to 90 degrees, maybe ten degrees more upright than usual. My right shoulder bitched for the warm-up and first set, so I backed the seat off about 5 degrees. This made all the difference. I cranked two sets of 7 with 75 kilos on the bar for about 210 pounds. Felt fantastic, if a little heavy at first. Warmed up to it. Snorted Tork and got five on the last set. Honestly, I feel good about this after the big layoff. I did three sets of polish work by doing standing flys with some chains on handles between sets of the next lift.

Seated french press: 3x7. Remembered to actually do frenchies today, thank goodness. Put 100-something pounds on the bar and cranked with a shoulder-width grip. These were great. My right elbow had to warm up to the idea, but there was no pain after all was said and done. Each set was tough, sevens for all three, and the last rep in each was a life-sucking bitch. Fantastic. So far so good.

Squat: 3 x 7 x 350 kg. Took the weight up and put a reverse green band on the bar. I did Anderson squats, starting the lift off the pins and dropping to touch each time to verify depth. I set the pins just below parallel to be sure and had at it. By this point the Spike was kicking big and I was hard on the Tork. Getting the weight off the pins was bitch tough, but this was awesome. By the end of the third set my quads were screaming, which was the desired effect. I managed not to destroy my back, not to do any sustained good mornings, to keep my ass back, and to get the weight moving. Great stuff.

Big congrats to Strongman Bob for doing so well in his comps over the last couple of weeks, particularly with so much life going on -- that life crap gets in the way of things that need to get done.

Feel great about this one, guys. I needed that, having gotten in something like three training days on the last two weeks. If I can sort this, the rest of life may not be such a big deal.

Have a great day.