3 Weeks left and I’m feeling beat up!

It’s a been a while since I’ve posted.  Partly because I’ve been busy, but also because I haven’t had anything too exciting to write about.  Right now Josh and I are in the meat and potatoes part of the training – It is just week after week of hard/heavy training and it takes a toll on you.  You struggle to find the right balance between recovery and training.  You hate yourself for just missing that bench or deadlift so you want to come back to it twice more that week.  It’s a mental thing…it plays tricks with your head, but I’m confident we’ll pull through, we always do. 

Here is how things are looking:

Squat:  I’ve been hitting 585 consistently and I’m happy with that

Bench: 455 is no problem anymore, just working on assisted sets with 470+ to get more comfortable with that weight

Deadlift:  Somedays I’m good for 600+ somedays not, but this is where I really feel my hip/leg fatigue.  I’m still confident I’ll hit good numbers at contest time.

Other News:  Weight continues to be a struggle for me.  I’ve been down as far as 276 and then back up to 281.  My diet is so much cleaner that what it was and I’m continuing with 3-5 days of tough cardio…I guess that’s all I can do.  Josh suffered some strained muscles in his back 2 weeks ago.  He had to switch to a sumo deadlift, but I think that’s a better technique for him anyway.  His squat has went down some, but he should still be in the 400s and bench is coming back – he got 335 today.  Also his weight is coming up – 196#s.