Week 13 continues

Starting Strength went awesome last night!

I got back into squats at 190. They went pretty well. Not my best, but they were plenty low. My legs have been hurting all week and I really felt like I was struggling, but overall I felt like I controlled the weight and I feel comfortable moving up to 195 on Friday.

Shoulder press was next, and this was the part I am most excited about. Like I said in a few earlier posts, I've decided that I'm bouncing too much and want to eliminate that. I dropped the weight to 110 lbs and focused on slow, full reps using only my arms. Wow, this felt really different! My triceps were much more engaged and starting to actually press from the bottom (the rack position) worked my shoulders better than any other press I've done in the last few weeks. 110 was the perfect number to start with and I did 3x5 with excellent form. The group said it looked like I was making a very conscious effort to not move anything but my arms, but I looked and felt really strong. I'm moving up to 115 on Monday. Wish me luck! This exercise is all arms!

Deadlift was next. I still don't understand why deadlift feels so heavy, but it really does. I lifted 185 last night for 5 reps. It felt really heavy and I'm going to repeat this next week. I had to fight from using my back, but my form was good. I'm going to repeat this next week, and hopefully move up to 195 the following week.

After lifting we decided to do Ab Ripper X. It was a hard ab ripper overall (my abs hurt from Rushfit the day before) but I completed the whole thing. Maybe not 25 reps on everything, but definitely a good ab ripper. And as always, I got all 50 mason twists in. I refuse to ever take a break during those; after an entire round of P90X with 50 mason twists 3 days a week, that one I'm holding onto for life!

So that was my day. Week 13 is almost done! Tonight I'm going to do Plyo X with the roommate, and tomorrow is another day of strength training.

Bring it!