23 July

File this one under interesting interaction, unsolicited advice. A guy who I think is the owner or manager of the gym came up to me today, talking about my squat form - after my first warmup set with just the bar. This set I do super-slow and often hold at the bottom for a few seconds, just for general warming/stretching/balancing purposes. So anyway he comes up, starts chatting a little, and tells me that I need to be looking up - not at the ceiling, but at the far (~50m away) intersection of the wall and warehouse roofline. So we have a discussion about keeping a neutral neck, he suggests that my balance is too much on my toes and that that's because of looking forward/down as I do. So I take that on board, and because I'm a nice chap (and it's still an unloaded bar) I do my next warmup set looking more upwards. And the balance does actually feel slightly better, and I can feel it more in my quads than my hamstrings.

But of course that's not where I want to feel it, and a loaded bar (even at my current workset weights) balances vastly differently than an empty one. So I don't change for my worksets, and though he's wandering around still, he only briefly comes up a little later to ask if I tried it, and almost ruefully (but genuinely) comments "Still want to do it your way, that's fine!"

And it is.

S: 102.5 (Starting with the belt already for worksets, helps me to remember to do my valsalva properly more than anything else at this weight)
B: 57.5
D: 125

Plus an extra powerclean (I do these, by the way, partly to shake my legs out slightly, partly to remember how to do them, and mainly so as to get the bar back up on the rack to take off the last plates, as it's easier that way.)

Proper PC worksets start back again on Thursday.