Today I wanted to try to figure out what really aggravates my calves the most during squats. Is it ATG rom? Is it knee wraps? Is it going totally raw and not wearing any wraps? Friday squats were great, easy, and painless. I wore wraps for my 445-475-500 sets. No calf issues and I buried most of the reps ATG because I was feeling good. Today I had a lighter workout - 5 triples at 415 - and I did them all wrapless. Extremely painful calves. I sank my last set ATG and it didn’t make any difference - still hurt like hell. I have two things I want to try yet - olympic lifting shoes, and knee sleeves (like rehband) but I’m not sure either will help. Stupid calves. That being said, squats were fine. Nothing to write home about. Moved on to bench - light week this week for bench - and it felt like crap. I hate our narrow bench now after being spoiled by the nice wide bench at the out-of-town gym I utilized last week. Oh well. I did some kneeling ‘Y’ lat pulldowns using the cable crossover stacks, trying to mimick that nice Freemotion machine I used last week. My cable variant worked just as well - wish I would have thought of these before.
Squat:
135×12x1
275×3x1
335×3x1
390×3x1
415×3x1
415×3x1
415×3x1
415×3x1
415×3x1
Bench Press:
135×12x1
180×3x1
215×3x1
250×3x1
265×2x1
265×2x1
265×2x1
265×2x1
265×5x1
Kneeling Y-Lat Pulldown using Cable Xover Stacks (weights are per arm):
96×12x1
132×12x1
168×12x1
192×12x1
209×12x1 (PR)
DB Floor Press:
100×8x1
100×8x1
100×8x1
100×8x1
+ stretching + power yoga (60 min)
Duration: 120 minutes