Two posts today, just to get my log a little more up-to-date.

Friday was an upper back day at the gym down the street for me. I've been getting a little beat up with all the shirt work, so instead of two bench days per week, I'm making my Friday an upper back/assistance day. I've done this before with good results, so I thought it would be a good change while I'm figuring out my next meet shirt.

I did 10 sets of 10 on the hammer strength row with two plates, trying to keep it to about a minute between reps. My back was pretty smoked after this, so I moved on to the dip machine for 4 sets of 15, then did some spinal stability stuff (planks and bird dogs), followed by some pulldown abs, and stretching.

 

Today was a squat day at Apollon. to be honest, my squat days have been almost all crap for the past couple of months. If it wasn't my back giving me issues, it was my hip, and I was seriously starting to doubt my future as a full lifter.

Today was exactly what I needed.

The guys in the group were doing rack pulls, but the last time I deadlifted, I could barely function for a week. The girls were box squatting with the Yolk bar, so I joined them, figuring I wouldn't be using much more weight than them anyway, especially if the last couple of months were any indicator. It was not what I expected.

bar (65) x a few

115 x 3

155 x 1

205 x 1

295 x 1

335 x 1

Put my jack suit bottom on, and used it as a brief.

385 x 1

425 x 1

475 x 1

515 x 1

The 515 was a little shaky off the box because my hip was just starting to bother me a little, but my back felt awesome! When I looked back in my log, I saw that I had actually matched the heaviest weight I had done in two years, and I had room for more!   Although my hip was a little tender by the end, it was clearly better than previous sessions.

I've stayed away from box squats lately, figuring they might be harder on my back, but my back felt fine, and sitting back on the box was definitely easier on my hip.

After the squats, I did some rack pulls off of pin 3. I still suck really bad at pulling, and this rack height is especially hard for me, but I still was able to do it without pain. I only went up to a couple of sets with 365, but this is still a small step forward, just based on the fact that it didn't hurt.

Finished with 4 sets of 15 on the reverse hyper, and 4 sets of 20 on the hip adduction machine. These look silly, but I do feel that doing them has been helping my hip issue. We do a ton of abduction/external rotation the way we squat, but very little adduction/internal rotation. I think that the imbalance may be contributing to the pain.

 

All in all, a much needed squat day!