February Squat Challenge Week 2

Okay, so we are now reaching the end of week 2 of my February Squat Challenge and what a week it’s been. The week for me personally did not start off well…. At all! I wasn’t well in the slightest and barely made it out of bed on Monday. What makes this worse is that not only did I miss the 3RM testing session, but all of the sessions for the rest of the week are to be based on the weight that I achieved during this test.

Come Tuesday though I was back at it and in the gym and I decided to base the sessions upon last week’s numbers. So each session was based upon the impression that I hit 165kg and as you can imagine, when recovering from an illness, energy levels sucked. So trying to hit a weight you’ve only ever hit a handful of times was TOUGH!

Then came today. Friday is essentially a re-test as you are to hit the same weight you did on the Monday. This is where I winged it a little as if I were to copy Monday, I would have been cooped up in bed shivering. So I just went for it! BIG TIME!

We were supposed to hit 3 sets of 3 reps of our max. So to my surprise, 160kg went up fine. Second set at 170kg went up fine and I was feeling good, so I gave 180kg a go. Bearing in mind this is already a 10kg personal best for me (the 165kg I hit last week was not a PB), and the fact I’ve been on recovery mode all week, I was hoping more than expecting……. In the end I actually came out disappointed I hadn’t tried for more! As greedy as that sounds…. But if you watched the video I posted earlier on today on the Instagram and Facebook account, it actually looked and felt relatively comfortable (ignoring the fact I didn’t quite reach exact parallel, and that I was screaming like I was giving birth to a 50kg dumbbell).

That’s a 15kg improvement……. IN 12 FLIPPIN’ DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still a long way to go to hit my target but that also means that I’ve FINALLY hit double my own body weight….. FINALLY!!!!

 

One thing that came out of today, which was highlighted when I began warming up is how important it is to remain consistent on the time of when you train/stretch each and every day, especially on rest days (as it was yesterday). I didn’t stretch off until late last night (which I usually do in the mornings). So then today the warm up took an extremely long time and today is the first day I can honestly say I felt stiff as a board since we started!

 

As I’ve mentioned numerous times, it is not just me doing this challenge, I have a mini army joining me on this….. and the feedback is nothing short of incredible! I managed to collect a broad range of people with various different backgrounds, ranging from CrossFit coaches to disabled athletes to get involved and every single one of them has noticed an improvement. One participant has even blown me waaaaaaay out of the water by adding 20kg already! Which is a whopping 16% improvement!!!!! IN 12 DAYS!!!!!

 

Big week two in the books! Now it’s on to week three to see if 190kg is achievable, then we really are in touching distance of that nice round 200!!!!!

Have a great weekend! Back in at 75% tomorrow!

 

Ben

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