Amazing what three days of rest can do for your body.  I spent Saturday and Sunday with the family in Gothenburg. Satruday we were at Liseberg amusement part from just before 11am until nearly 8pm. The next day we visited Universium and were there from 10am until nearly 3pm before driving home.  On Monday I visited Leon, since I felt I was mentally over my Ironman race, but that my body was not really on board.  Leon was able to gave my body a push towards recovering. so to let that treatment have full effect I rested the rest of the day.

But today I made it to the Box, and working up to a 1 rep max with Over head squats was on the menu. Of all of the squat movements, this is the one that is least effected by my back.  With Front, Back, KB or what ever other squat movement you can think of where the weight is in front or behind the body I am limited to my core strength and my back.  But with Over head squats I have no problems holding my body straight and keeping the weigh on my heels.

So after a quick general warm up, I started my set to find a max.  My previous max from 8-10 weeks ago was 65kg.  But I am not sure if it was my true max, or if time just ran out. Either way, I based my sets on 65kg.

I started with 8 reps with just the 20kg bar. making sure I find a good body position and grip.

I then move up to 30kg and 5 reps. 3 reps at 40kg and I make a sligh adjustment in my grip width. I then start doing one slow rep of the following weights with about 60-90s rest during which time I changed the weights. 50, 60, 65, 70.  When I was getting set up for 70kg I thought ok this will be my last rep of this set. I lift the bar on the back of my shoulders. I do a push press to get the bar up, lock in my arms and then squat.  Wow I think, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be to squat.  So I add 5kg to the bar, go through the same walk up, grip, lift, push press from behind the head, lock out my arms and slowly with control squat.  David happened to be watching and started saying, “a little more, a little more, a little more, good”. once I heard the good I pushed myself up and cleared 75kg. 10kg better than the last time.  I started to change the weights to try 80kg, but our 12 mins was up and I thought, why not save it for the next time, that way I can get a new PB.

At my current weight 98kg that is roughly 75% of my body mass.  My goal is to get up to 100%. But I do not think I will get up to 100kg, but I do think I can loose weight.  So it will be interesting to see where the two meet up.  90kg, 85kg or 80kg.

But before I can expect to increase my OH squat I think I need to work on my core strength, as well as shoulder press.  I currently max out with shoulder press at 85kg….

 But who knows maybe will finally let me try to do an over head squat with her 😉