I never really tracked how things were going with Willis program, I sent him videos every day at the start, then my latop decided to die, so that went out the window. But The program was very simple, do one week of 10 singles with a pretty challenging weight every day, except sunday, then max the following week every day. Don't stretch of foam roll or do any kind of warm up at all, let the squat build the flexibility to squat.
After the first couple days, my left leg got tight to the point where i could barely straighten my leg, or move it in general, my barcihials started to spasm like crazy from holding the bar on my back, and I had to ice them every night. A deep general ache set in, touching the bar hurt, where the bar sat on my back was tender to touch. Oddly I was sore all over except my low back. I can remember taking naps as I was painting during the day, and almost having an anxiety attack having to carry my equipment up 3 flights of stairs.
The second week the brachials were a lot looser, but needed constant attention. I was maxing daily, and terrified as i felt so horrible, but the weights were all around 500, and I was genuinely surprised. Missed a couple squat, and folded over pretty hard into my belt, and really jacked up my ribs. This became a rough go, I didn't break anything, but tore a bunch of cartiliage, and they just hurt like crazy all the time, and couldn't unrack a bench press by myself. Wound up going to the hospital at the end of the week for x rays, and they said I was fine, but should take 4-6 weeks off lifting, I explained my situation and they just said to train as the pain allowed. Halfway thru the week, I hit a pretty good burnout, and it took Diane and Willie to get me in the gym that night.
Week 3 was 10 singles with 435, and it was like a recovery week. It was still brutal, and the ribs bothered me like crazy all the time, and by the end of the week my right trap/shoulder was spasming all day every day. Sleeping was a total nightmare. This was the week I started trying a few new things with my stance, I have no idea how to explain it, but my body naturally just wanted to let the knees go more forward and stay more upright. I pointed my feet much more forward, and really worked on keeping my knees out. I actually kept maxing on Monday and hit a really good 5 plates in this style, and decided to try to stick with it as I was getting a fair bit under parallel and felt strong like crazy. I took a few vids to make sure i was getting depth, and all was looking great
week 4 was another max out, I was feeling strong, but my body was so tight that looking back i was cutting all my squats, I thought from the week before I was still getting solid depth, as I typically just judge it by feel... but I wasn't. This was stilla great week, and by the end of it, I felt like I could max out on any given day and given time, and not even get too worked up about it.
Week 5 was a bit of a taper... I did 2 days of 10 singles, and 2 maxes, that I had to do in Toronto in one crappy gym and one pretty good gym where I hit a 535 in the same style I was missing 520 with... it wasn't to depth, but it was consistent, and i felt like if i had the boys around I could have gone much higher. I watched them all, and they were close, probably 2 inches high above parallel, but above.
week 6 i squatted monday and wednesday, monday just up to 440x2 and wednesday 405x3.
The meet was the meet, I benched much better, and pulled well, but not how I wanted to. I'm confident both these lifts are going to keep moving though. My squat was a painful thing, after watching the vids, I thought i maybe got a gift on the first one, but compared to my 2nd high squat it was fine. 2nd i did it just like i did in training, and it felt light, but not to depth. 3rd i decided to take it lower and i just didn't do it. A very tough thing to have happen after putting in the time... but there are so many positives from this failure i really don't care. I immediately headed home, put the bar all the way up to my neck, dropped straight down, and it felt perfect. I maxed out that monday with 435 and 45lbs chain, and while feeling like death, it went up smooth, and I'd found my style.
Other things I noticed:
-my left foot would slide into a toes pointed out position in the hole and i never noticed until a partner pointed it out to me, and that knee was horrible, I limped for weeks.
-I couldn't eat enough, my food choices this summer weren't really all that great, but honestly, it's by far the best I've ever done. I had a lot of plain triple patty hamburgers, plain chicken wraps from tim hortons, and flatbread from Subway and bacon and eggs, but I had to start slamming mixed nuts like crazy, low sugar oatmeal/protein bars, and timbits whenever i wanted, and a big general increase in portion sizes... and it was still tough to keep weight on.
- I was just tired an exhausted all day every day
-my hands hurt to touch anything
- my posture improved, shoulders pulled back a fair bit, and I could feel the muscles that had to tighten up like crazy to do it, cause they were sore all the time.
-Deep breaths hurt, and breathing in general got kinda crappy, Isabelle told me my diaphragm was spasming
- i woke up 10 times a night, basically whenever i moved
- Every day i was looking forward to my squat workout, even though i dreaded it like you can't believe.
- I was cold all the time, I mean all the time
- I benched maybe 4 times in 6 weeks, and 2 of them were about a week out from the meet, and my bench went up after losing a fair bit of upper body size from not being able to do much.
-the doubles on the way down from maxing out were harder than the max by a lot, but still went up.
- getting thru something like that just changes or makes you question just about all your training beliefs
I think when I go back to this and try it again I'll have much better results. Willie has been keeping his numbers very quiet, but I hear he's made big time progress, and I think one of the reasons is that the dudes had near perfect form for like 10 years, and if he tightens up like crazy, his body can still go to that perfect form... whereas mines ok, so when I get tight, it throws things off. I think after Dec I'd like to give it another whirl, but it's also one of those things where you've gotta have a big WHY, or you'll never make it, so you may have to think about timing. I'd prefer to not be in a wildly stressful time with very long work hours the next time I try.
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