5-4-3-2-1

Last night's workout was pretty simple. Three lifts - squats, bench presses, and then deadlifts. I did 5 sets of each lift with 3 minutes rest between sets. My rep counts for the five sets were 5-4-3-2-1. And, in every set, I increased the weight from the previous set.

My legs were a bit tired from skiing over the weekend, and I could feel it, especially on squats. I did a 285 pound squat last week, but last night I started at 225 and finished at 265.

For bench presses, I started at 135 and finished at 155. I don't know if I'll ever be any good at bench presses in comparison to the leg-dominant lifts.

For deadlifts, I started at 275 and finished at 315. After doing a 355 pound deadlift a couple weeks ago, only getting to 315 seemed kind of weak, but it was at the end of a tough workout. I was surprised that my grip seemed to be a limiting factor last night. I may have to resume doing farmer's walks to work on my grip strength for deads.

I'm hoping to get in some kind of workout over the next two days, but I have some last minute stuff to do for Christmas, so I'll have to see how it goes. Plus, my company released a new software product today, so I've got to monitor our systems pretty carefully for the next few days. I worked until midnight after lifting yesterday, making sure that the product was really ready for release today.

I'm certainly looking forward to taking some time off work later this week and again next week, after working hard on this new product for the past few months. I'm planning to ski on Thursday with my daughter, and then get in some more skiing days next week. Plus, I need to do some running.