Second day of running 5/3/1 and 3x5 squats were on the menu. I've decided to do all my squats/deadlifts totally beltless and wrapless for the time being. Now, if at any point I feel like the benefit isn't truly worth it or something feels off, then I will definitely put my belt on. I kind of just want to test myself to see how far I can push it without it. Might as well abuse my body while I can! So my plan on my squat days, is to make my accessory work mostly quad dominant with an isolation exercise or two for my hamstrings just to bring lots of blood flow to the muscle tissue...something like reeeallllyyy sloowwww eccentrics or lots of time under tension with light weight. (I plan on hitting my hamstrings heavy on my deadlift day with the same isolation plan for my quads. We'll see how this works for the next couple weeks.)

Side note: I'm also wearing my wedged shoes to get some extra emphasis in my quads.

My super duper raw squats went well. It definitely takes me a solid month or so to get used to squatting raw again since I'm a dirty little gear whore. Dave Tate has an awesome article on transitioning from geared to raw squatting and how people feel "weaker" coming out of the gear when in reality, you just need to re-learn the motor pattern without having feedback loops from the gear. It's a really informative article that I enjoyed reading when getting into equipped lifting.

Check it out here ---> Gear vs. Raw Training Minus the Bro-Science

With that being said, it felt VERY strange not feeling the "pop" out of the hole. So naturally, every rep felt slower than molasses going uphill in January. Even not wearing my belt was alien to me. Not having anything to push up against when taking my belly breath is something I'm not used to. I know that I will get better with some time, I know I just need to be patient and trust the process. I had to cut this training session short because it was my sister Carla's birthday and we went out to get breakfast after I trained. Blueberry pancakes for the win! Here's what I was able to sneak in:

A. 3x5 Squat
275x5
315x5
360xt

B. Strip Set Leg Press (Minimal rest between sets. About 5-10 seconds.)
12 Plates x 20
10 Plates x 15
8 Plates x 15
6 Plates x 15
The pump was REAL after that.

C. Bodyweight Split Squats
2x15

Wanted to do abs but I had to skedaddle, family first!

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Snapchat @damicostrength
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See you all soon!