6-14-14 – Max Effort Lower Body

Today’s squat session really revealed a great weakness of mine. My abs and lower back MUST GET STRONG(ER)! I wanted to test my ability to keep my body tight without the use of a belt. The weight was going up up fast when the weight was under 405 lbs. The sets after this weight were the real test. I made sure that before each set I would inhale as hard as I could, brace my stomach as hard as I could and squat like I know how to squat. I weight felt a little heavy towards the middle of my rep, causing my rep to slow down.

Exposing your weaknesses is something that is very important to the sport of powerlifting. This allows me to focus my training on improving what I suck at. This will only get me strong(er) in the long run. After my final set of 500 lbs I decided to do a single rep of 515lbs with a pause on the bottom of the rep, WITH A BELT. This came up so easy and it should have. I was able to keep tight by pushing my abs against the belt. Simply wearing a weight lifting belt doesn’t make you more stable. You have to be able to know how to use it. I feel if I can improve my squatting without using a belt that it will directly impact my squat when I do where a belt. Today’s session was an eye opener. It’s days like this I am thankful for. I have to improve my weak points in order to become strong(er).

MAKE IT HAPPEN