Squat Success, Picture Updates and Face-First Into Bad Habits

So I ended up squatting on Friday evening this week instead of Saturday morning since I was at a conference at work from 7am-4pm on Saturday (yes, you can totally feel bad for me for having to go into work at 7am on Saturday, I gladly accept your pity.) I enjoy Friday evenings at TPS because the gym is packed and it makes me happy to be there instead of at happy hour where I religiously spent Friday evenings for years and/or sitting at home on my couch being exhausted, which is how I generally spend Friday evenings these days if not at the gym. I seem to have lost some of my squat mojo from last week when I was feeling very solid with my form and the weights were feeling light, as the weights actually were light this week (it was "explosive" squat day, when I'm supposed to focus on moving the bar quickly) but it felt like I was moving through mud. That said, I still considered adding on an extra set of safety bar squats because I felt like maybe I wasn't getting enough work in, however the 6x3 set of pause squats that finished up my main lift work for the day pretty much crushed me, so I'm glad I didn't get ahead of myself by loading up the safety bar squats. In other words, "STICK TO THE PROGRAM, RACHEL." In other not-breaking news, the glute ham raise is essentially hamstring hell and sort of makes me want to die every time I use it, but I just assume that means it is really, really, really working.

Squat Day on Friday:
Warmup: foam rolling and meathead mobility
Warm-up Squats (regular bar): 45#x5, 5, 5 (with a lot of time spent in the hole stretching my hips out); 95#x5; 115#x3; 135#x3
Competition Squats: 145#x2repsx6sets
Safety Bar Squats: 105#x5,5
Pause Squat: 135#x3repsx6 sets (I realized a couple weeks ago that I should be using a lower 1RM weight for my pause squats, as it doesn't REALLY make sense for me to be doing almost as heavy a weight and more reps for my pause squat as my comp squat, but I also think it's helpful for me to be working heavy pause squats so I'm keeping the weight as-is for now, even if it means I have to split sets - the program is written for 6repsx2-3sets, but I can only get 3 reps out at a time at this weight.)

Glute Ham Raise 5x12
Snatch Grip Deads off blocks 165#x8, 8, 8, 8
Shrugs giant contraptionx10, 12, 15 (because sometimes you just gotta work on your traps)
Semi-inverted rowsx7, 7, 7, 6

Cool down: Yoga Stretch (5 minutes)

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This morning was Body Day, and I mixed up my exercises a little bit, substituting in the split-stance tricep extension and 3-point dumbbell row, both suggestions from a nice little article from Eric Cressey's newsletter this week. I have been wanting to make some slight adjustments to my exercises for Body Day as I tend to get bored with the same accessory work week after week, and these tweaks were perfect for making it feel fresh. Also, the split-stance tricep extension is definitely friendlier to my irritable triceps tendons which are always a little cranky with direct triceps work. As part of my goal of assessing how I'm feeling about my body without measuring my progress on the scale I snapped a couple pictures as all in all I have been feeling pretty rockin' about how I'm looking both in and out of the gym. I like my booty (yay deadlifts) and am continuing to work on accepting my belly for what it is rather than hating on it pointlessly. 

Yay for purple tights! 

Working on loving every bit of me, even my valgus knees. 

 I also took a picture of my traps, because I like them and because I remember when I first started training with Chris asking a couple friends to tell me "if I ever started losing my neck" by getting too bulky, whereas now I pretty much just want bigger traps and bigger lats, bulky neck and back be damned :) Ah how things change.

Yes, I am totally flexing my traps in this picture, and yes, I wish they were larger.

Unfortunately after a pretty good workout and feeling pretty good about these pictures, I promptly fell face-first into a pile of cookies after getting home. This is classic behavior for me, and something I am pretty embarrassed to admit to, that essentially any time I am feeling really good and on track and like I am close to my goals I generally immediately try to eat myself several steps backwards. It is a dumb and reflexive bad habit that I have yet to figure out how to break. That said, I am determined to salvage the rest of today and not spend it mindlessly eating crap with the lame justification that I already messed up so why not keep going (this is also a classic habit of mine.) I have a lot of studying and work to get done today and I need to focus on that, which I'm hoping will keep me out of the kitchen and the cookies. 

Body Day Training Today:
Warm-up: Foam rolling, elevated pushups, band pull-aparts and band pull-downs
1A) Single-arm DB Bench Press (4x10)
1B) Lat Pulldown (4x10)
2A) 3-Point DB Row (4x10)
2B) Split-Stance Tricep Extension (4x12)

Prowler Pushing: Sled+90#x200', Sled+180#x7x100' (9:36 total) = got in an extra 100' of pushing today, still under 10 minutes - whoo hoo!
Kettlebell Swings 16kgx40, 30, 30
Plank: 1:20 

Cooldown: Yoga stretching (4:20)