Boring: HST Day 6

Today was the final day of 15's, and I "cheated" by doing all the exercises on my list. What that means is that instead of doing only bench press today, which I do every other workout by alternating that exercise with a barbell bench press, I did both the regular bench press and the barbell bench press. Technically, you're not supposed to do that, as the point is progressive load with one set per workout, but I wanted by final day of 15 to be a blow-out, especially since I'm going to take two days off from lifting now before starting in on the 10's.

So this morning was a bit intense, especially when doing big full-body exercises like squats, lunges, clean and pushes and dead lifts on the same day. I also finally remembered to try and do front squats instead of my normal squats (I'm really trying to mix it up so that my body is forced to adjust in different ways), and I just couldn't do them. I've never really done them before, so when I walked up to the bar I had to try and figure them out, which I couldn't. As I mounted the bar on my chest, I think I had the right positioning and form, but it felt really weird and I didn't feel comfortable doing the exercise at the weight I was supposed to. I quickly realized that I should have tried front squats sooner when I was still at a lower weight, so perhaps after this current round of HST I will.

But, not one to give up, I decided to try doing squats with dumbbells instead, something I did when we were moving cross country and still living in hotels between apartments. The gyms only had dumbbells, so I made due with them, which resulted in something I had not expected: despite the dumbbells being significantly lighter than the amount I did with regular barbell squats, they were challenging. Something about having the weight further forward forced my muscles to work differently than with squats AND they definitely forced me to use my core muscles more, which was cool. Then, the big surprise came when I went back to doing regular squats in the gym and found that my max weight quickly went up. My theory is that the dumbbell squats were challenging my body differently, and that allowed me to break through my previous squat weight ceiling. Good stuff.

Anyway, so the problem with doing dumbbell squats right now is that it's difficult to hold the 55 lb. dumbbells at shoulder height while I'm doing them. My arms and shoulders get tired well before my legs do, so the dumbbells start to slip and fall off my shoulders, especially might left shoulder. In fact, I'd say that 55 lbs. is about the max I'm going to be able to do, as I barely pulled off 10 squats with them today before I had to stop, rest, and try again (I did 7 more on my second set). So, I'm not going to continue with dumbbell squats this round of HST, but next time around, I'm going to make them part of the 15's.

I'm trying to work abs into the HST thing too by doing more hanging straight leg lifts with each workout. I think I started HST doing like 4, while today I did eight straight leg lifts before my abs gave out and I wrapped up with 10 more bent leg lifts (basically, you hang by the straps, bringing your knees up to your chest rather than lifting your legs straight up and keeping them straight in front of you). That said, I barely did 8, so I probably won't be able to progressively load much more.

A note for future rounds of HST, my bench press weight of 105 lbs. was too easy - I could have done several more than 15 reps, while my incline bench of 75 was just about perfect. Dumbbell chest of 45 lbs. was not bad, while dumbbell incline of 40 lbs. was too much (I wasn't able to to 15 reps straight through - perhaps this was partly do to this being my last chest exercise though and I was simply tired). Clean and press at 65 was a bit easy, but man my heart and core were feeling it by the end. Dead lift of 95 was too easy too; I should increase these next time... perhaps I'll try dropping only 4% from my max each work out on the next round. Calves were too easy too, but I hit them in other ways (running and jump rope) on my cardio days, so I'm not worried about them.

Weight today wearing all nylon gear was just under 136 lbs.