Back in the Squat Rack
I squatted yesterday for the first time in five months. That's the longest I've gone without squatting since I first started squatting when I was seventeen. Even before that I'd managed to screw up my knee (ITBS if you want to look it up) so I had to take a month and a half off from doing any leg work at all. So really it's been about seven months since I've squatted hard.
I love to squat but the combination of the lack of a squat rack at the gym closest to my house, my hour-each-way commute, and my evening EMT class made it a hassle for me to walk all the way to the nearest gym with a squat rack and take care of business. I'd started to feel really lazy though and I'd lost a striking amount of muscle on my legs, not to mention that I missed squatting, so yesterday I went all the way to Crunch and squatted.
The amount of weight I was squatting with was the lightest I've used in years, a little over 33% less than what I was using before I got hurt in December. That's alright. It just gives me more motivation to get in there and squat hard to bring my poundages back up where they should be. Really that's my main focus in the gym now. The plan I'm following is the essence of simplicity:
Squat 1 x 20
Dumbell Bench 1 x 9-12
Dumbell Row 1 x 12-15
Stiff-legged Deadlift 1 x 10-15
I warm up with back extensions and I finish with weighted crunches on the swiss ball. Warming up with the back extensions is a trick I picked up from an old-school lifting book I read a while back (The Complete Keys to Progress by John McCallum). They do a great job of warming up your back and help you keep good form, especially on the early reps when sometimes my lower back can be stiff. I'm planning on hitting this up 2-3 times a week, depending on how I feel and certainly more towards two as the poundages go back up.
The real focus here is on the squat. There's a little upper-body stuff just to stay in shape and the stiff-legged deadlift is in there to keep the back and hams strong. What's important is how much I'm squatting. I'd like to be back in the 300's by the end of August but given how deep I squat (go deep or go home), if I'm doing 20 rep sets I might have to push that back a little bit.
By the way, I'm so sore right now I can hardly walk.
I love to squat but the combination of the lack of a squat rack at the gym closest to my house, my hour-each-way commute, and my evening EMT class made it a hassle for me to walk all the way to the nearest gym with a squat rack and take care of business. I'd started to feel really lazy though and I'd lost a striking amount of muscle on my legs, not to mention that I missed squatting, so yesterday I went all the way to Crunch and squatted.
The amount of weight I was squatting with was the lightest I've used in years, a little over 33% less than what I was using before I got hurt in December. That's alright. It just gives me more motivation to get in there and squat hard to bring my poundages back up where they should be. Really that's my main focus in the gym now. The plan I'm following is the essence of simplicity:
Squat 1 x 20
Dumbell Bench 1 x 9-12
Dumbell Row 1 x 12-15
Stiff-legged Deadlift 1 x 10-15
I warm up with back extensions and I finish with weighted crunches on the swiss ball. Warming up with the back extensions is a trick I picked up from an old-school lifting book I read a while back (The Complete Keys to Progress by John McCallum). They do a great job of warming up your back and help you keep good form, especially on the early reps when sometimes my lower back can be stiff. I'm planning on hitting this up 2-3 times a week, depending on how I feel and certainly more towards two as the poundages go back up.
The real focus here is on the squat. There's a little upper-body stuff just to stay in shape and the stiff-legged deadlift is in there to keep the back and hams strong. What's important is how much I'm squatting. I'd like to be back in the 300's by the end of August but given how deep I squat (go deep or go home), if I'm doing 20 rep sets I might have to push that back a little bit.
By the way, I'm so sore right now I can hardly walk.
posted by The Puma at 3:00 PM
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