5-5-14 – Max Effort SS Yoke Squats & Ab Blasting

After LTT, Mike was excited to use all the new things he learned and said he wanted to write my program for me. I agreed. So now we’re basically on the same routine. This will be my first time in a conjugate style training program.

First up was max effort lower body, which I completed with a SS Yoke box squat session, working up to a heavy triple. This was also my first time using the SS Yoke bar. Definitely takes a little getting used to, but I liked it. There were several new things to focus on with my form. I had to keep my upper back tight without having my hands on either side of me as I’m used to with a normal bar. I think that may have been the  most challenging part. I also had to focus on keeping my chest up, even though the big padded handles almost push down on my chest. The part that felt the worst was towards the end when I was getting to my max effort triple, I felt like my hands were lost. I loosened my grip on the handles without realizing it, which naturally made one of my hands go down and try to help myself back up in the ascending part of the lift by pushing on my leg. I definitely need to work on that the next time I do these. For my first time, I think I did great. My downset went well, I did better than I expected. Oh and I can thank Mark Watts for the pain at the end of my session. Mike remembered an old abdominal workout that Mark reminded him of recently, so he decided to put me through the hell of what we’ll call “band anti-rotations”. We took an orange band and tied it around one of the vertical poles of a power rack. Stand beside it in an athletic stance and have your hand holding and stretching the band parallel to your stance. You grab the band and pull it to the center of your chest then put your free hand over your fist, with both elbows bent. The goal is to not let the band pull your body towards the rack while you move your hands from your chest, straight out extending your arms completely. So if you’re grabbing the band with your left hand, the band will try to pull your whole body to the left while you’re moving your fists/arms forward and back to your chest. Sounds simple but go ahead and try it! Ugh!!

P.S. This was my first training session after shaving my head (see pic below). I definitely loved not having to deal with moving my hair out of the way, or having sweaty hair on my neck while I trained. It’s the little things! Oh and my showers are down to like 5 minutes now! #winning