I’ve written about the importance of recovery before. True story. Seems though, that I didn’t take my own advice. My food was lacking (in quality, not quantity), my sleep was lacking (both quality and quantity) and there has been at most a minimal effort on my part for pre-hab, warm up and cool down. All of these variables on your training journey are 100% in your control. Avoiding sugar, grains and legumes is easy (I refuse to give up on dairy), warming up and cooling down can be done smart if given time and sleep can be controlled in two ways 1. Close the door so the misfit kitten isn’t a bother and 2. Go to bed a little bit earlier.
I failed at doing these things which is why, today, I am sad to say, I will be resetting my back squat back to 335. In order to aid recovery I have adopted a slightly different template* which should prolong the linear gains that helped me work up to a successful 3x5 Back Squat @ 385# (failure at 390).
It is now up to me to buckle down and focus. No more dilly-dallying after work. The schedule has to be get home (around 5), feed the cats, change and leave. I have to focus on getting my body ready (examples of warm-ups can be found here, here and here) instead of strapping on my shoes and putting a bar on my back and making sure that I leave enough time (and gas in the tank) to at the very least get 10 yards of inch-worms in. I am going to have to replace my row of Oreos with bacon and sausage (it’s the small concessions that make a difference) and some sweet potatoes for those conditioning days. I feel as though I can make those changes fairly easily.
The problem lies in the sleep (pun intended). As I’ve said, my kitten is a misfit who gets hungry at 12, 2 and 4 in the morning. Those of you with kids will sympathize, unless of course you hate animals, in which case I probably don’t like you. The other reason why sleep is hard to come by is my work schedule. I have to leave for work at 5:15 to be on time at 6. This requires, for me anyway, a 4:24 wake up time if I’m going to have enough time to fry and enjoy my bacon. This, combined with the fact that all of the good TV shows are on late at night does not support my sleep needs (8 hours nightly, just like Sesame Street told me).
For those people who are still with me, today is a brand new day. I’ve got 3x5 Back Squat at 335, a 50 pound reset. I will increase 5 pounds each squat workout in hopes of breaking well beyond the 390# barrier. Best laid plans, right?
*Monday - Squat + Press, Tuesday - Pull, Wed - Rest, Thursday - Squat + Press, Friday - Pull
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