Deload

4th week deload on 5/3/1 this week. I've decided to give 5/3/1 another month. Numbers are continuing to improve. One more month with pretty much a pure strength focus:

Monday: Military
Tuesday: DL
Thursday: Front Squat
Friday: Bench

I had a bit of back and forth with CES not so long ago about 5/3/1 and its intensity level. We both agreed that the 4th week deload is absolutely essential. I *think* I'm going to experiment a bit with the training routine starting in January. So far I'm very pleased with the simplicity and feedback of 5/3/1. However, I find spreading the lifts over 4 days is somewhat time consuming and what ends up getting scrapped for me is conditioning work. I'd prefer to change this. I'm okay with it for the time being as I'm more interested in just improving my movement and increasing strength. So dividing all of my strength, assistance, and corrective work over 4 days has been good.

However, I do feel the clothes getting a bit tight. Will need to rein in the diet a bit (I've been eating pretty obscene amounts of food. Good food, but still a bit too bountiful), and I've probably put on 10+ pounds since I washed my hands of bike racing aspirations in late summer. However, I don't anticipate getting around to reining in that diet until next week.

The plan is to probably test 1RM's after Christmas to benchmark and reset my actual maxes for the 5/3/1 program. Then I'll probably restructure something like this:

Monday: Deadlift/Military Press + Corrective Work
Tuesday: Conditioning complexes or Circuits + Assistance Work
Thursday: Front Squat/Bench Press + Corrective Work
Friday: Conditioning complexes or Circuits + Assistance Work

Saturdays, we'll try to continue rallying the troops for some park (or at least park inspired indoor) workouts.

I am hoping that this will give me a good blend of strength and conditioning in the amount of time that I have.

I enjoy deload weeks. Despite being (in my estimation) completely essential, they also give me a chance to experiment since the volume is lower.

Yesterday I did some light overhead squats in vibrams with a bit of heel lift. Body felt good. JB suggested some work on internal hip rotation. I'm going to try to couple that with ankle work. Hopefully we can get the remaining issues with my squat ironed out.

Today I did a simple ladder that I liked a lot.

KB Swings
Goblet Squats
Jump Rope

Did ladders on the swings and squats and a fixed interval each time on the jump rope (40 jumps). I like the jump rope for conditioning. I wish I was better at it.

That's all for the time being.