After an abysmal showing at APF Equipped Nationals, I'm now in an off season mode of training. Currently, I am in a strength block building up strength and weaknesses to prepare me for a meet prep cycle for WPC World's in November.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com

Saturday's training session was a great one. We had a full house of people to have a good squat party (it was my birthday after all). A pretty tough variation for the day with the Yoke Bar against some light bands. This is a humbling squat variation for me, as the Yoke Bar always kicks my ass. Add in the bands, and it really forces you to keep things locked in. My consistency needs some work, as well as staying tight in the hole, but I can't complain too much with my day overall. It was just a beautiful day outside, a good training session with good people, and some New York style pizza from a local shop in town afterwards. Needless to say I was off my nutrition for the evening, but that's okay as moments are worth more than sticking to my diet super strict at this point. I'll just make it up with some extra walking during the week and trying to stay pinned down a bit more during the week to balance things out. So with that said, I won't have any update pictures tomorrow as I know all the measurements will be skewed as hell, and will just throw things off. I suspect next week I'll have some measurements and stats back around baseline.

As for my birthday, I'm very thankful to make it another year with awesome people that I get to call friends and family. I'm finally starting to grow into a version of myself that I'm very pleased with (as a person, coach, lifter, mentor, and professional). I'm excited to see what this year brings, and in hopes of some great things to come. To those of you that read my log that reached out to say happy birthday, I really appreciate it, thank you!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbowaSSrMbM]

Items Used in this Training Session
SS Yoke Bar
Light Bands
Mini Band

Warm Up
Hip Flexor Stretch - 30 sec per leg
Leg Swings (forward and side to side) - 10 each
Single Leg RDL - 10 per leg
Bulgarian Split Squat - 10 per leg
Goblet Squat - 10
Standing Band Crunch - 15

A1) SSB Squat vs Light Bands
65x10
65x5 - add bands
115x5
155x3
205x3
245x3
295x3
315x3
335x3 - PR
310x3x3

B1) SSB Pause Squat
295x3x8

C1) Bulgarian Split Squats
3x10 per leg

D1) GHR (Elevated) vs Band
3x10

E1) Single Leg Reverse Hyper
3x15 per leg

F1) Lying Band Leg Curls
4x50
F2) Wtd Sit Ups off GHR
4x10