Forgetting the Past = Paying Now

Admittedly, with all the stress I've been attempting to manage lately, I'd forgotten all the Z lessons I've learned about my body and some of the lessons I've learned about training myself over the last 18 years. Here is what I've been going over in my head for the last week but just haven't had the time to put on the blog til now:

1. I am still myofascially wound in localized areas: I had forgotten that in order to keep this right knee healthy, I must perform A LOT of mobility work with my left shoulder in extension, and from that position perform elbow, wrist, hand, and finger mobility.
2. I still need to perform extension and supination work at the wrist, hand, and fingers to counteract all the heavy gripping I'm performing.
3. I need to perform extensive shoulder mobility work to counteract all the loading on my hips: Every rep I perform loads my hips, with the exception of strict pressing and chins/pull-ups.
4. Hand and finger mobility is a must. When I fail to perform these drills, I swear my feet start to lock down. Combine this with old shoes that are too small and I have serious problems.
5. I can't prove it, but failure to perform these things winds up [re]producing my visual and vestibular issues: I lose localized mobility and my body is forced to rely on more centralized afferent input.
6. As far as resistance, I really truly favor the low reps: 1-3 is best for me--at least for my mind. But when I read my training logs and look at the tonnage I was able to lift in the past, I accomplished this by training in the 3-6 rep range between 60-80%. When I needed to peak, then the reps were lowered and the intensity was increased. Bottom line: I need to build mass to fill out the 105's. The surest quickest way to do this is to use the aforementioned parameters. My pysche doesn't necessarily like it, because, let's face it, the loads used are just plain lighter. I like heavy. But the proof is in the past. As long as I'm using the Elements of Efficiency, I'll grow like a weed again.
7. If I want to build some beef, I've got to drop the specific work. Since I'm not going to Nationals this year (I'll be there next year--my goal for 2007 was just to be able to squat again and then compete again--so I've accomplished half my goals for this year already), I'll use a lot of partial exercises and pick up some specific work once a week at most. So lots of pushes, pulls, and squats plus meat and sleep should keep me in an anabolic state.

So this past week I've just trained light: I've worked on touching or just slightly exceeding 70% on every lift for 5 reps. Easy work. But here's what I've discovered: Not only do I seem to be using a lot of colons on this post but I'm out of shape to perform 5s. Since we are inherently pleasure-driven beings, this explains why I've been neglecting them--They're just painful--much sweating and heavy breathing accompanies their performance when one is used to performing half the work.

Here's yesterday's session:

Sunday, 3.26.07

A. Push Press:

90kg/5, 100/5, 110/5; 90/5, 100/5, 110/4; Didn't feel like grinding out the 5th rep--way too early in this cycle for that...

B. Front Squat:

90kg/5, 100/5, 95/5, 105/5;

I back squatted the day before upto 130kg/5 on a series so I took it very easy: I didn't want the knees to be wound up today. Back in the day, this was 150/5 x5. It will be again and then some, I'm sure of it.

C. Clean grip Deadlift

140kg/5, 150kg/5, 160/5; all very easy.

Rest for the entire day was 2 minutes between sets. I'm trying to build some beef so a lower rest period is required. I'll do this for 2 weeks and then increase the rest to 3 minutes to allow for a more adequate recovery and hopefully lift more weight.

The goal is 4 sessions each week with KB and extra Z on my off days. One day a week will be completely off. In general I rotate my priorities using a H-M-L system each day, based on number of lifts, not necessarily intensity of RM.