A whole bunch of downtime and not a word to say.

I was effectively "Out of Commission" due the the injury reported in the previous post which re-aggravated soon after that writing. Rather than whining about it, I laid low, flew out to California for work, drank a bunch of beers, and saw how the other half lived. The other half, meaning those of us who aren't fortunate enough to work in a "hardcore" setting. (God, I fucking hate using that word as a descriptive term) The hotel I was in was pretty swanky digs, and it came all inclusive with a resort type spa and gym. I however will use the word gym very loosely. They had a few rows of Matrix machines, treadmills, elliptical, and a few other cardio things I have never seen. They also had some dumbbells which went to 75's and the typical triceps press down/lat pull machine. Not wanting to lumber around for 10 full days, I got some light assistance work in which at least kept me in hock with the calorie police that live in my head. It's increasingly difficult to justify 3500+ calories sitting on my ass.

This is the enemy of strength

None the less, I came to a few conclusions on my time away from the rack.

First of all...That treadmill and band pulley weight machine shit sucks. I mean fucking terrible. I have never felt so close to injury while attempting any group of exercises in my life. This includes the notorious SMITH MACHINE SQUAT. Much like that mess, the physics of these contraptions are all wrong, and the weight which you can "say" you are using is a farce.

Secondly. I'm not doing enough. I'm "trying" hard, and I'm gaining and I'm injuring myself pretty regularly and fighting through it,but I can do more. As dumb as it sounds, the injuries are actually bringing me to this conclusion.  So I went back to my 5/3/1 where I left off and I have had some "Week 3" pretty heavy, and overall successful sessions since I landed back at home on Saturday including another Squat PR for reps. My bench fell off a bit, but I have added some accessories which I think will elevate that within the next 6 or so. Here's the "I'm not doing enough" part. More squats!

MORE SQUATS! and squat accessories.

This technically is a squat accessory

I have to add a high volume light weight day, or box jumps, or good mornings or fuck, maybe even some pause work into the lower end of my movement. I don't know, maybe all of it! My squat is terrible still. 280's for 5-6 isn't fucking good enough. And I noticed the other day, I am slow out of the hole. Not just at heavier weights either, I mean at 135, I'm slow some days. Other days, I could probably do jumps with that. I'll figure that training day out and report on it's physical effectiveness at a later date...

I know what you're thinking Blah, Blah, Blah, get to the fucking point of this. I have one. It's corny and kinda lame but I got really excited by this earlier. It has nothing to do with the new Thursday morning session I'm adding, but it ticks off the "More" from the list. It has everything to do with three things below..

This is actually learning. This is actually wanting to try harder.  This is actually growing.

All of that to me is being better, and what this has become all about.