Time to push

I feel like I've turned the corner in my routine. It reached a point where I felt I was struggling to get through each workout. Each lift just felt heavy, and each rep was fighting me. But now, I believe I've weakened the evil Dr. Gravity's defenses. His weapons affect me less and less each day. Today, I dealt Dr. Gravity a serious blow.

It was deadlift day in my 5/3/1 routine. It's also week 3 of the cycle, which means this is the heaviest week followed by a deload. I was supposed to finish off my deadlift with at least one rep at 290. Instead, I did three reps at 295. But it felt too easy. It was an anticlimax to my victory over Dr. Gravity. So I followed that up with a set of three reps at 315. No, it's not the most I've ever deadlifted, but it is the most I've lifted in at least two years. I finished with a set of five at 275 as a warm-down.

Tomorrow is an off day, luckily, and if the weather holds, I'm going to mow the lawn so I have a nice flat space to do my farmer's walks on Saturday. I still need to find a big fat tractor tire, though. Not sure where to begin looking, but somebody around here's bound to have one lying around, overgrown with weeds.

After the off day it's bench press, and my plan is to follow the same pattern as today. Yeah, I'm kind of cheating on the 5/3/1 plan, but it feels too good right now not to push the envelope and do as much as I can. If I'm truly making next week a deload week as the plan instructs, then I might as well go all-out this week and raise the bar. But I would like to see that deadlift get back into the mid 300s where it was before. I think I could very well do it next Tuesday if I don't deload. Maybe I'll do the one heavy set and then follow up with some lighter work. Maybe.

The old strength is returning, and the vile Dr. Gravity is beginning to know the icy embrace of fear. Now, I just need to get my diet in order. That means climbing the mount once again and returning to the teachings of the Exalted One, Tom Venuto. BFFM, here I come.