Barbells

I'm not sure what age I picked up my first barbell but it was pretty funny.  I remember doing my first set of bench press with my dad's 25-ish pound barbell.  He was so cautious and careful when showing me the form and clearly very nervous while spotting me through those first sets.  Definitely one of those moments that you clearly remember your parents doing parental things.  Like when I was 14 and he got fed up with looking at the awful peach-fuzz crustache that had formed above my upper-lip and showed me how to shave. 

Adam Morrison has a crustache

Anyway, barbells have become my favorite piece of equipment.  They're effective and humbling and brutal and fun at the same time.  Monday there were front squats where we worked up to heavy sets of three and I was able to do sets at 255.  It felt heavy.

Wednesday we did the press and were instructed to work as heavy as possible but I was not able to hit my previous 1RM, probably due to the handstand push up volume training.  The METCON was 100 overhead squats with 95 pounds and this is where the barbell becomes brutal and humbling.  I had seen that we would be doing this workout the night before and it was posted with a video of a guy doing all 100 reps in a row without stopping.  Naturally I told myself that I could do it too.  Boy was I wrong!  I did sets of 25, 20, 15, 15 15, and 10.  I think my time was around 9:45.

Thursday it was deadlifts for a 1RM.  In the past I had done 415 with lifting straps but only 405 without.  I was able to hit 415 without, so it was great to see progress here.  Friday I came to the open gym and did some sets of 3 bench presses at 225 and a few sets of 3 back squats at 275 but my lower back started to ache, probably due to Thursday's deadlifts.

Lots of barbell stuff which is right up my alley.  Soon I'll need to buckle down and start drilling the gymnastics movements.