Exercise Log 12.19.13 (Dev Day + Cardio)

Alright a quick exercise log today for today’s workout. Today was developmental day, which means I did what I felt fills in what bothered me the most this week. I felt like after my last leg day a couple days ago that I really needed more work on my squat form… so it was squat-mania! I’m going to syndicate this post because I feel like it, but it doesn’t have any fancy content so if you care to skip it go for it…

My warmup was fun I tried medicine ball squats and medicine ball spikes, 3 sets, didn’t keep track of reps it was more about revving up my system probably 12-14 reps each exercise. After that, straight to my front squats.

Front squats were brutal, like 40 minutes or so in the power rack. First I did 6 sets of 5 reps at a moderate weight (for me) of 105lbs. Keyword: volume. I was focused especially on good form and pausing at the bottom for 2-3 seconds to really focus on my drive back up. Inbetween sets I started doing 6 sets of 4-5 vaccuum strength breathing. For those who didn’t see the video I posted before, this is a breathing exercise to build the muscles inside the abdominal wall that stabilize your core, strengthening your “natural” weight belt around your girdle and making you stronger for compound lifts (like squats).

After this high volume I tried to increase weight in sets of 2 reps. Did 125lbs good, did 135lbs fine as well. Then I hit my sticking point at 150 (which is better than my max by 5lbs). I must’ve failed 3-4 times before deciding as a penalty for failing to rep a new max I decided to do isometric holds of 185lbs in a standing clean grip. What that means is I racked the weight up by my shoulders and just stood there with the weight compressing my spine, holding my thoracic extension upright as best as possible. This is an incredible exercise, did 4 reps of 30 second holds.

I felt after doing this that maybe the resting combined with the holding of the unbearably over-heavy load might make me feel more easy doing my new one rep max level. I tried twice again and on the first rep, I really feel like had things gone even slightly differently I could’ve had it, but failed again. That’s okay though… all this work I feel like is contributing to improvement. Front squats are hard, but one of the best exercises you can do!

Needing something that let me actually sit down for a bit, I racked 360 plates on a heavy sled on a vertical leg press and did controlled, slow sets of 8 reps of leg pressing and calf raising. Just to build more quad energy and of course, might as well hit those calves while I was in a good position to.

After that, I wanted to do some isolation on quads and hamstrings to just really push through the parts I felt were sticking from the failed reps. I did 4 sets of 10 reps with an increasing weight (from 210lbs-255lbs) on the quad leg machine. Then I did the hamstring leg curl machine for 4 sets of 10 reps @ 125lbs for a good burn there and on my final reps I was failing hard. You always know you have a good workout on a body part when you hit failure right near the very end and have to eek out 1-2 more reps to finish.

I need more energy. So I felt like the best wrap up here was box jumps! I don’t know how high my jump is, but like before I did 10 plastic thingies high of 10 reps. Then I incremented a box pedestal (I don’t even know what to call them) by one, doing 10 reps at 11, 12 and 13 units high. Lastly I tried to do a box jump at the level I failed at before, 14 units high. Did 2 reps and made it! Felt pretty damn good.

This workout was very leg heavy, so my cardio today was a 2 mile jog on the treadmill and I took it very easy. Leg heavy days are always rough for cardio for me, but I felt good about it and feel like I really worked.