Weird front squats — Day 3 — Week 4
Day 3 of the week means I start with front squats. I had a very weird start to them. I wanted to have my grip be the same as it was when I do cleans, which is a little wider than I would normally have it on a front squat. Because of that, the bar slipped on my 5th reps and the bar fell off on my first wet. Since the bar did that, I moved my hands in, which allowed me to get a better grip on them. I had a total of 4 sets of 5 reps to do. To make up for only doing 4 reps on my first set, I did 6 reps on my last set. It was exciting to get over 300 lbs for front squats on this program. I hope to keep building upon this and getting my quads stronger and stronger.
After front squatting, I had snatch pulls. I did these from the ground like I did the clean pulls from earlier this week from the ground. I went up from when I did these from a deficit. I was working on what I as struggling with my snatches on the previous day. That was waiting to extend. I think I did a good job of this on these pulls. They are were tough. They didn’t all go above my belly button, so I will be staying at this weight next week.
I was feeling my biceps at this point. When I had my failed rep on the squats, it put a lot of pressure on my achy biceps, so I was not expecting a lot with my jerks. I was focusing on my making my form be as crisp as I could. I failed two weights. 265 lbs and 275 lbs. I jumped back a little on the 265 lbs rep, but I caught the 275 lbs rep well. My arms just felt unstable and weak, so I let the weight go. My biceps was achy and made my arm unstable when doing jerks.
It’s kind of annoying how my arm is limiting me a bit right now. I will be taking some ibuprofen and being more conservative with the work I do with it. I was able to do my OHP after my jerk work with any irritation in my arm. Deloading will be very good for me to do to get my body right before I move onto my next phase of training to prepare for my competition. I have had this ache before in my arm when I have done too much pressing, and it has always gone away with rest. I don’t have any reason to think it won’t go away this time if I’m smart and give myself enough rest on my deload.