After coming off my best meet performance of my career, I am now officially a beat up powerlifter. I'm having some minor low back issues that I'm working on mending up, and then I'll begin to find a competitive option. My goals for 2017 are to compete in a bodybuilding show and also get back to the platform 100% healthy.

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

Saturday started out week 8 of training, and this is basically going from a Max Effort Lower body day, to a rehab based day. I'm still going to train, help my training partners do their usual thing, and make any kind of progress and improvement I can. But more importantly, it's about testing myself each week about how I'm feeling and what I'm capable of. Given that I'm not going to squatting or deadlifting for the whole month of January, I know I won't be doing that. But I'm going to be working on some of the rehab and breathing stuff, and also some other exercises that have been recommended to me.

I'm happy to report that I got through this whole training session entirely pain free, and was able to goblet squat feeling really good. I've got to do some offset squatting to help my movement patterns and also get my left oblique to fire, which feels REALLY weird, but I guess that's why I'm doing it. Everything else for the day was based upon just trying to get my low back to feel good but also training the legs in a powerlifting fashion to feed my itch. The rest of the week will have some bodybuilding based lower body work as I feel I want to push it. Some serious bench press training is coming now though!

Items Used in this Training Session

Warm Up
PRI Breathing Work - 5 min
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) Offset Goblet Squat (right)
5x20
A2) Goblet Squat
5x20

B1) GHR (Elevated)
4 sets, max reps

C1) Reverse Hyper
2x20
2x15
2x12

D1) Bulgarian Split Squats
3x20 per leg, pulsed

E1) Hanging Leg Raises
3 sets, max reps
E2) Standing Band Crunch
3x20