NerdStrong Gym - Building a Back Squat

Today's workout started with our usual warm up, perfect stretches, inch worms, planking and banded squats. For the "proficiency" was did 3 sets of 5x Mace Squats. We had the option on how to hold it and of course me being me I went with the toughest and held it vertical and towards the bottom of the mace so all the weight was on top. It took alot of balance and counter balance to not tip over while squating but I'm happy to say that I was successful.

For our Quest, we continued our work with Back Squats. We started with building up to heavy 4 reps and then did 7 sets of 4x Back Squats. I teamed up with Derek (my usual barbell buddy since we both are about the same height and can lift pretty much the same amount). We started with about 95 lbs and quickly made our way up to around 145 lbs and did seven sets at that weight. I did find out that I need to take off my shoes when doing back squats so I my heals don't come up off the ground. After doing that I found that my form is much better and I'm able to lift more when squating.

For the "Battle" portion of the workout we had to do 10, yeah that's 10 rounds of 4x Dumbbell Push Press' and 4x Dumbbell Reverse Lunges. Push Presses are okay, tiring but okay it was the reverse lunges that were tough, at least for me. I don't the best knee's sometimes they go out on me for no reason so going down to my knee over and over again can get painful. But if I pace myself correctly and just take my time I can get through the routine with as little pain as possible.

Overall a good workout.. can't wait to see what my one rep max will be on Back Squats when we get to that point.