Thurs, 31 Mar 16

I barely had anything left in the tank after my ex phys exam yesterday and while I managed to do a little work when I got home, it wasn't much.  A number of people have asked me questions like, "How do you manage training with the demands of school?"  So as an example, here was my day today:

0500: Get up

0500-0900: Study for my kines exam

0900-0930: Drive to school

0930-1100: Ex phys lecture during lab time (a.k.a. more studying for kines exam)

1100-1515: Study for kines exam

1515-1530: Pack up, head upstairs, get changed into scrubs

1530-1630: Kines exam in the cadaver lab on lower extremity joints (hip, knee, ankle, foot)

1630-1730: Change, drive home, caffeinate myself, pray to Odin not to sod up my training

So after 9.75 hours of studying and a 1 hour exam, my brain was backfiring pretty regularly and I had very low expectations for training.  Nonetheless, there was no reason not to do it and I KNOW it helps keep my sane and alive.  Did extra warmup, extra warmup sets, and took longer breaks between sets and ended up with a highly productive, if somewhat truncated, training session to end a total crap day.

Deadlift

10x45

10x135

5x245

3x335

3x360

3x390

3x450

8x505 - Not a single rep of a single set felt good, but somehow this set all felt like butter and I had at least 2 more reps in the tank, probably more.  I didn't take it to failure though because I knew going in that I am not close to 100% right now and while I did go much further than I thought I would (heading into the last set I was expecting to stop at 3 reps), today was not a day to push the envelope, or poke the bear, as they say.

Suited 12" Banded DL

5x245

5x245 + short lights

3x335 + short lights - Added suit

3x6x355 + short lights - None of this felt good.  I definitely need to tighten the straps on my suit more and adjust my foot position slightly forward as well.

I didn't do the rep set today since I need to make some adjustments to how I do it and I was also getting to the point of feeling like discretion might be the better part of valor.  Plus it was 7:30 PM by this point and I was tired and hungry and wanted to spend some time with my girlfriend before she heads out of town for a week tomorrow.  Over all this was a great end to a long and stressful day and I'm very happy with how my training is progressing so far.