Strength Training Over the Month of May

I keep thinking I’ll be able to write more often and then I look up and two weeks have gone by (or almost a month in this case), but oh well. It’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to……or something like that. May has been a pretty solid month of training and I’m really loving this 5-3-1 program with Boring But Big as my main assistance work. I’m feeling stronger than ever and even my gimpy shoulder is finally feeling strong and stable again. I’ve also removed the regularly scheduled deload weeks and instead will just listen to my body and take the easy week when I feel wrecked.

Some notable PR’s over the month of May:.

• Deadlifted 410 pounds for a couple singles. That’s only a five pound PR but I was pulling heavy singles in between my Boring But Big sets so I certainly wasn’t fresh and I definitely had more in the tank.
• Front Squated 275 a couple times over the last month. That’s a 10 pound PR but again, I did those in the middle of sessions so I wasn’t fresh. The second time I was actually going to try and make it a double, but got slightly forward and lost it. I had the legs to get it up but need some core work in order to stay upright.
• I was playing around with some heavy thrusters on a Saturday while the wifey was in a dance class and got 225 overhead. That obliterates my previous PR (200lbs) but I don’t do a lot of heavy thrusters and that previous PR was from three years ago.
• I also matched previous PRs for both my strict press and push press and those are the biggest milestones for me. After almost a year and a half trying to train through a shoulder that felt weak and unstable; my shoulder feels great. I’ve consciously stayed away from anything that aggravates it (snatches, kipping pullups and toes to bar) and also added quite a bit of “shoulder strengthening” work. I started doing behind the neck strict presses and I feel like that’s helped more than anything (other than general stretching of course).

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed the past month of training. I’m constantly reminding myself I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and be able to deadlift a 1,000 pounds and instead just focus every day on being stronger than the day before. Enjoy the process, as they say. I’m kicking around the idea of entering a powerlifting competition sometime before the end of the year but that’s really just an idea in infancy right now. For the time being I’m just trying to stay in the now and continue getting stronger. That’s about all I’ve got for now, but hopefully I’ll be able to post some thoughts on what we’ve seen at Regionals so far and some reaction on HQ’s announcement concerning off season competitions in the very near future.