Tough but fun

The workout that I was supposed to do on Wednesday was a very tough lifting workout. Instead, in the interest of time, I did a short interval workout on the treadmill. I moved the lifting workout to last night. This was an incredibly tough workout, yet I loved every minute of it.

I think it's clear that being a runner and skier, I'm always going to do better on squats and deads than the bench press. A friend of mine recently set a new Vermont age group record in the bench press with 336 pounds and he's in an older age group than me. That lift was about twice my best ever. Yet, he can't touch me in the squat rack or in deadlifts.

Anyway, last night started out with a front squat/back squat superset. I was supposed to do 5 supersets, with four front squats followed by as many reps as possible of back squats, using the same weight that I'd used for the front squats. The week before, I'd used 135 pounds. This week, I moved to 145, which is the most I've ever done for a front squat. It's taken me a long time to find a grip that I can really work with on the front squat and progress has come slowly. But, the front squat really hits the quads hard and I can really see its value in conjunction with back squats, which hit the posterior chain more.

Just like last week, I did a total of 100 squats during this superset - 20 front and 80 back squats. I found that the first set of back squats was tough and then things got better in subsequent sets. My lowest rep total came in the first set.

After this superset, I did a superset of Bulgarian split squats and Romanian deadlifts - 5 sets of 6 reps each. Well, the Bulgarians were six per leg, not just six total. This went well, although the 185 pounds for the Romanians were getting very tough by the end. The fatigue just accumulates on these leg dominant lifts, and I'd done some running interval work the day before.

Last came deadlifts. I love deadlifts. I can lift more weight on this lift than any other lift, and I think I have the potential to break the Vermont age 50 record in the deadlift when I turn 50 in 2.5 years. Because I like it so much, I try not to focus on this lift excessively, preferring to focus on lifts I don't like as much - lifts where I clearly need to improve. But, even tired at the end of the workout, I really love doing deads.

I had just finished doing Romanian deads at 185 pounds, so I started from there:

5 x 185
5 x 205
5 x 225
2 x 245
1 x 265
1 x 275
1 x 285

The week before, I think I'd done a 295, but I was shot by the 285 last night, so I called it a day. I don't want to risk injury by trying too high a weight when I'm tired. I do deads without a belt, so I have to rely more on my core for back support, and no injury is worth the 10 extra pounds.

Tonight, I'll run easily for an hour after work, although after last night's workout, it probably won't feel easy. Perhaps I should say that I'll run slowly for an hour this evening.

Tomorrow, I'll do an upper body lifting workout to give my legs a rest and then I'll relax for the rest of day. I'll watch college football, chaperon my daughter and some friends for some Halloween festivities, and then maybe watch the world series game.