Thursday squats

I've been trying to not give it any thought, and just focus on the positive, but lately, I've just been feeling burnt out and sore and tired, and typically I'll feel good for my practice, then come home and an hour or two later, just tighten up to the point where I don't even want to move. It's a different feeling than maxing out every day, which was just brutal in ever sense, this is almost an overwhelming swelling at times.

I do my best to chalk it up to that I'm actually powerlifting now, and I'm a lot stronger than my technique and tendons/joints... this can cause problems, whereas someone like Willie has been lifting like this since he was 15, has perfect posture, and has tendons made out of iron. I think I'll adjust, and hopefully my oly lifting background is going to let me adjust fairly quick. It sure has been intersting seeing it happen, but a pain in the butt when middle aged customers are asking why it takes me a good 45 seconds to get from a laying to standing position.

Had a quick meeting in person with my nutritionist Hassan Jama today. He asked me to meet him and I just said ok, wasn't the best timing, but if he wants to meet, that's cool by me. Had a quick chat about where we were going, he's feeling I'm on track, I've got a great rhythm with my diet, and cooking and cooler. My business partner Katrina works with him as well, so we eat around the clock together, and support each other in it, then when I get home my girlfriend Megan eats the rest with me. She's been slowly leaning out since we started dating and is down to 115, no idea where she started, and I'm not asking. Either way, she looks hotter everday.

Squats
top set of: 400 4x4
- first set I did a double, my belt has been digging into my guts brutally, and I was susrpised I wasn't bleeding, put a towel in the area, and felt great. Hit the hole very well and smooth tonite. One hip is feeling a little tighter than the other, so I twisted slighlty on the way up, but nothing serious.

Good mornings
270 5x5
-I'm not as good at these as I used to be, but I control them a lot better. The eccentric phase I let my knees bend a bit, concentric, I really straighten my legs, and make sure it's a good morning, and not half assed squat.

Sit ups on gh
2x15
- going to start donig these again, along with planks on the gh and side bends. I've tried the whole not training the core thing, but for a fairly long torso guy, I just don't think it's going to work as well as making sure my torso is strong.

Marks pretty busy right now, and I'm a little worried about the program as I started late, and the 80% are freaking me right out, but I look back on my vids where I was doing 10 singles with 405 everday, and each rep of my sets of 4 looks a lot better than any of those reps, and my first day maxing I hit 475 when I didn't think I could get out of bed... so I'm feeling good. I've been actually stressing about this meet, and then I took a step back and realized how totally retarded that was. I'm just going to try to hit a 10lb pr on my second attempt, and use the 3rd for something fun, or retake my 2nd, and just knock it off. I'll have a better idea of what I'm capable of after getting up to 90-95ish and seeing how those feel. Even if nothing good comes from this meet, there's just too much good stuff in my training right now for it to really matter.

 I've been just starting what I see to be a good 3 year run of refining and perfecting technique in all lifts, and figuring out the loading and volumes I'll have to use to get there and stay healthy so I can lift when I'm 35. Took a while, but diet is finally under control, lifts are at a good consistent technique and I'm surrounded by young positive people that just love to lift. I hear how important is to lift with strong people all the time... and that's cool... but my #1 priority is to lift with positive people at all times. I've been overloaded with negative people the last 7 years, just brutal customers and employees where if I make any mistakes they try to get every single thing they can out of me... and it was really making me miserable. For people that know me in person, or have seen my other logs... I'm basically a huge goof, and that's how I like to be outside of work. If powerlifting, or anything in my life every gets to the point where I'm surrounded by negative people, who always see the glass half empty, and choose to try to tolerate everything rather than face it... well, I'll either train solo again, or find new people. I don't love powerlifting, I love positive self improvement, and right now powerlifting is just the most measureable way of doing it for me. I'll be doing this the rest of my life.