Every Cloud

My woes continue.  I feel like shit, and I've concluded that's because every cloud has its thorn.

All the same I've finished one week of squatting everyday, and I have nothing but good to report so far.  Of course most days I have only hit the 315 double, but I've gone above it a couple times hitting a fast, easy 375 double at most.


I wanted to time myself, so Saturday, an especially shitty day, I started the clock and tried not to hurry.  I hit the double in 8 minutes, 8 seconds feeling in no way rushed.

Eight oh Eight

I thought that was a decent time.

Look, if I had to train at a CrossFit where I was expected to do 25 minutes of mobility work and a 25 minute wod, I could still get my work done.

Or again, if or maybe more likely when I get kicked out of all the CrossFits and have to train at 24 minute fitness, I can still get 15 minutes in the tanning bed.


True, 315 is light and a double certainly isn't much volume, but it's more than a lot of people will do in their careers.

So again, it's been great so far, and I have the following to report:

On some otherwise horrible days, I did my thing and so avoided feeling totally useless.  I suppose though that this point might be countered with the observation that people who don't squat any day also never feel totally useless or they would squat some of the days.

I don't waste any time on warm up or mobility work.  Most days I just start with 45 x 5, but at least one day 135 was sitting on the bar, and I'm a  guy, so I hit that shit.  Before squatting everyday, I usually couldn't hit an air squat to depth in the morning without some preliminary work, and now it's no problem which makes me wonder if perhaps in general we spend too much time on mobility work, and not enough time on moving.

I don't waste time changing my shoes.  Dude, it's about 70% of 1rm, and the whole thing  takes less time than ordering Reebok gear online.  I guess if one my shoes falls off someday, I'll take the other one off to be symmetrical, but then again maybe not; it's 70% dude.

I wondered if I could avoid wasting time with a belt and wrist wraps, so I tried it and the answer appears to be yes so far.

I have very little soreness.  Until I quit breaking myself, I have to train BJJ conservatively, but in my limited trials squatting has not interfered with rolling.  Likewise I condition three days a week, and I do double unders and box jumps like a boss.  It seems like squatting, as I long suspected, is the ultimate warm up.

I don't worry about eating before, during, or after training.  I doubt I'm getting all catabolic with my volume.

Really I have nothing bad to say.

 I might eventually get bored, and then I'll put my bodyweight on the bar and see how many reps I can do in 5 minutes.  This came up on facebook lately, and at least one expert said it's a stupid thing to do which is all I need to do it as soon as I need a challenge.

I suspect my top end strength will rise slower than it would on a 5x5 or some such thing, but right now I can live with that.




Hopefully it continues to snow. I watched a documentary on Mongolian Judo players.  Apparently they like rubbing snow over their bodies after running up mountains, so I tried it myself the last two days after squatting, and it seems reasonable to me.

Be right, be wrong, but keep trying and training.