Shit Training Session

I am in my usual post training position, feet up on the couch, belly full of food,relaxing. Tonight's session required some introspection to understand what went wrong in a fairly average session.

Today was squats at 92% of 1RM for two sets of 5 reps.  Again my refamiliarisation with wraps was less than stellar. Now I am a consistency guy when it comes to training, I don't like when shit gets changed and this week while I was scheduled to squat with the rest of the team I was instead on a plane to Brisbane for 3 days of work. Consequently I didn't squat until 4 days later and I felt under done.

Warm-up sets went up with little drama however the single just before work sets felt fucking heavy. Regardless in the chair and wrapped for the first work set. Straight away the wraps felt a little tight though I put it down to not having them on since States. 

I get positioned under the bar get set and down I go and straight away every single thing feels off. It annoys me endlessly that something my 2 year old daughter can do instantly, squat with good form, can cause me endless fucking issues! So first rep I sit down and I am out of the groove back up down again and this time inexplicably I lose it as my upper back collapses badly which just doesn't happen for me. I get another rep then call the set quits. The second set is only marginally better so I do a third set of 2 reps to find some value out of the session and they are less than perfect but much better than the others.

It's pretty easy to get discouraged after a session like that but as in anything the challenge is to analyse well learn from the mistakes and toughen the fuck up and move on.

I spent some time reviewing my footage from States and compared it to tonight's session and it is apparent a few bad habits crept back in and royally fucked my session.  These include:

• Feet in the wrong position again, too narrow and when I squat down I have no room to sit through
• Not pushing knees out and focusing on sitting through my legs
• Wraps were too tight, I did well at States with a looser wrap and I need to be more proactive when the wrap feels tight to adjust it
• Fucking around with hand spacing and bar position
• After the session I loaded a light weight, got the positioning set and while it was much lighter the chest stayed up and instantly felt the glutes working hard from the bottom

So what do I take away from this, well regardless how bad it felt I still managed 9 reps across 3 sets at a weight that was a PB single 8 weeks ago. Importantly I know what is going wrong so I know what to work on. I really need my pre lift routine to focus on the cues for the lift.

I'm really pissed now and I am going to take it out on the Texas bar for deadlifts on Saturday!

Stay Strong

Thomo