Focused on a mid-January race and gradually taking care of some nagging issues.

Slowly getting some strength back!  Took a round of doubles and a top end on DL.  I’ll be deloading next week, so I got after it with the pulls.  I wasn’t really sure where exactly it was, so I found out.  Ordinarily, I see a lot more consistency in a top 3-5 than any sort of single.

Warm-Ups with lower body always include some or all of the following:

Band Walks, Clam Shells, TKEs, Peterson Step-ups (miserable), single-leg bw movements, and/or direct hamstring work.

None of it is super intense, just continuing to try to improve the lateral stabilization of the right knee.  It is getting better, I don’t have a ton of days post-training where it feels like I need to reconsider steps or that someone has stabbed my kneecap.

Squats went up to 325 for a double, this was supposed to be 315 but forgot bar weight.  Slow progression up, then hit sets of two at 275/295/305/325x2x2

All are controlled tempo with a pause in the hole.  I don’t have a specific count that is going in my head, just controlled descent, holding that position to feel what’s going on with knee stabilization, where the pressure is on my foot, and how I’m restarting the movement back up.  It got squirrely on one of the two sets and that’s ok given everything.  I’m happy and remaining patient.  I’ll be strong soon enough.

The bench is coming along gradually as well.  A couple of easy sets at 305 for doubles and pain was pretty minimal to non-existent.  Definitely, a day where I was cool with everything and well aware of how far I’ve pushed my body over the years, lol.

Deads, man, that first rep was a real bummer.  I tend to stiff leg my pulls, always have.  I’ve fought myself repeatedly, but that just seems to be where I revert back to every time.  The big issue, of course, the bar gets out in front, you’re kind of screwed.  Definitely will be more observant of that as time goes along.  The knee plays into my setup as well.  I can’t pretend like it’s not on my mind during my setup. I still haven’t gotten back to a point where I’m completely comfortable with getting overly aggressive.  All told, pretty solid.  515×5 gives me a solid range for a training max over the upcoming 10 weeks.  That was what I was looking for and now I’ve got it!