Anthrax

Well, I feel as though I'm coming to the end of this series - which group will get top billing? With the start of the sprint series around the corner, there's probably only one more session of real strength-building in the gym before we move on to a more bike-centric training period until December or so. After all, the primary focus of strength training is to be able to ride faster. I'll miss it a bit, I must confess; hopefully the 'maintenance' focus will give me enough of a fix of being under the bar.

That said, there wasn't much strength-gaining going on this morning! After being fine all week, as soon as I got under the bar to do my squat warmup, my right knee/hamstring/buttock flared up again (last week I felt it more in the knee, this week more in the buttock) and restricted me to just 80kg before I pulled the pin. I'll be taking a good look at my form to see if I can pick any twisting or stance issues, and trying to ascertain if anything has changed significantly since the last time I videoed my squat.

So I moved on to the press, with a 2.5kg jump up to 57.5kg today. And perhaps I should have just gone with a 1kg jump instead, because I ended up doing 3 sets of 3, instead of 3 sets of 5! No drama, I'll keep it there for another two attempts; if I can't get 15 reps done, then I'll reset back to 50kg or so.

It was up to the deadlift, then, to restore my honour and a bit of a sense of accomplishment to the morning. I knew, going in, that I was doing 155 - still, I flirted with the idea of trying for 160 instead. I was never going to actually do it, I don't think, but it's hard not to entertain the thought of keeping on pushing as far as possible.

It turns out, though, that I almost certainly wouldn't have gotten 5 reps up at 160 anyway. One can't say for sure, of course, but the extent to which I had to strain to get 155kg up 5 times gives a pretty damn good indication! But up they did indeed go, so I left (after 5 (jumping) chinups with slow, controlled negatives) feeling fairly satisfied with the session. And a bit odd - knocked about by the deadlifts, but with a curious lack of leg-shnozzlement due to the lack of squat worksets, and with intact lungs. I'll have to try to fix that next time!