Squats. Week 1 Cycle 11.

10 reps? Please kill me.

Today was squats and the first time I've deloaded a lift since starting 5/3/1. As I wrote in the last post, I wanted to get my squats back to the 10 rep range for week 1, the 8 rep range for week 2 and the 6 rep range for week 3 as that's where I had been making gains for the first 7 cycles of 5/3/1. I figured with 385 I should be able to get 10 reps, and that's exactly what happened. I also wanted to work on my depth, as my squats were getting a bit shallow. Today's were pretty good, except for maybe the last rep.

For assistance work I tried paused squats for the first time. I'm hoping these will help me be more explosive out of the hole and more comfortable going to depth with heavier weight. I did 315x1, 365x1, 405x1x3, and 315x5 (this last set made me want to pass out). The ones at 405 were paused, but not for very long, even though I could have sworn I was down there for what felt like an eternity. I then ended the workout with some front squats. I did a pyramid with 135x1, 225x1, 275x1, 315x1, 225x2x5 (paused at the bottom on the 225's). This 315 was probably my best heavy front squat in terms of having the bar not falling forward so much on the descent.

Goals for today:

315x5
335x5
385x5+

Lifted:

315x5
335x5
385x10

Week 1 progress over the last 11 cycles:

• 310x6 - cycle 1 
• 315x7- cycle 2 
• 325x10 - cycle 3 
• 335x8 - cycle 4
• 340x10 - cycle 5 
• 350x10 - cycle 6
• 355x10 - cycle 7
• 365x10 - cycle 8
• 405x8 - cycle 9
• 410x8- cycle 10 (not great depth)
• 385x10 cycle 11 (deloaded)

Video of workout: