AugustaAdaByron

Female BW: 67kg Squat: 87.5kg Date: 22 December 2017

Hmm, ok, I’ve fallen of the face of NF lately but this might be the only mini challenge in which I’m able to participate 100%. I will not reflect only on the last year though but on the last two years (sorry Br0din, not sorry :P). Sooo… around this time two years ago I wrote my first letter of intent. I had just started working with an online coach, who I still work with, and I had successfully finished the russian squat routine for all lifts and gotten new 1RMs so I wrote a very optimistic letter. This year’s letter won’t have the same flavor. As I state in that letter I had learned the following things: Not train close to failure Sometimes eat like an asshole Be consistent but not worry about taking one week off My plan for 2016 was: Try not to overthink Technique is still going to be the number one priority 90/60/120 (kg) should be attainable strength goals for this year which at 63kg would give me a wilks of almost 290 so for extra challenge let's round it up to 300 I don't intend to compete (ever) but I will submit 1RMs to the Leaderboards and might participate to one of the virtual NF comps if possible What I did instead was that I ignored most of the things I learned and of course didn’t adhere to the plan for the most part. What I actually did was: I indeed didn’t train close to failure. In particular, I very rarely trained close to my max. While consistently training close to failure is one thing, avoiding “heavier/scarier” weights is also bad for me. I can’t keep up with my form once I get challenged or my brain goes into worrying mode. It's a skill I need to learn. I am now conditioned to things of absolute values as heavy or light weights so even when a weight should be easy for me, I still think of it as hard. Regarding eating habits, I spent most of these two years worrying about my weight and wilks, I did a cut both summers trying to get leaner and stronger. It was not until I was really hungry, gave up and started to reverse last winter that I saw some gains and hit PBs. Regarding consistency, that’s for the most part done. I rarely skip sessions unless its unavoidable or it's one of those couple of times per year that I feel lazy. One of the things I did wrong last year was that whenever I got a cold, I was in a hurry to get back to the gym. That resulted in me getting sick very frequently (January, February, March, and May in 2017). Of course I didn’t have enough time to fully recover between getting sick in order for my training to be really meaningful. I even lost strength during that time. Of course I never stop overthinking, I have to try more. Technique took a lot longer to work on. Squat and bench have been consistently getting better but not deadlift. This lead to the following issue which was that… I couldn’t reach the number goals in 2016. In 2017, I came very close to the squat goal (87.5kg), halfway to bench but hit some nice volume PRs on the way (I’m at 55kg max achieved, although I failed that in the last max out), and deadlift hasn’t really moved. Funnily enough I did participate at an informal competition last March. Unsurprisingly I came last. I seriously thought of giving up about a month ago (at the max out session). I enjoy the process of lifting, getting better form even if annoyingly slowly, setting new rep PRs when possible but the thought of having a max out session which determines whether I have got stronger or not is stressing me way too much. After discussing with my coach he said i should be able to push strength this year so my intent for 2018 is the following: Evaluate my strength progress. Try to learn the skill of doing heavy singles. As I said, I do enjoy lifting and training but if I’m not making any measurable progress in my 1RMs then maybe powerlifting isn’t for me. I’m in a very weird place where I don’t want to throw away 4 years of training for that but also don’t want to keep doing something and investing time and money in it if I suck at it. I'm constantly in a "what if" state where I think of giving up but wondering what if I'm really close to breaking a plateau. (I did not make any progress in 2016 and most progress was made in the second half of 2017. It's the only thing that still keeps me slightly optimistic and motivated). Finally, I’ve started to feel for a while now that my battle log has fulfilled its purpose more than it needed to so I’ll probably not keep updating it.

Workout from Wednesday 27/12 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x6 60kg x3 50kg x10x2 Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x10x3 What's this RPE nonsense?

Workout from Friday 22/12 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 70kg x1 80kg x1 87.5kg failed 87.5kg x1 90kg failed Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x1 50kg x1 55kg failed twice Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 70kg x2 80kg x1 85kg x1 95kg x1 105kg failed

Workout from Tuesday 19/12 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x8x2 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 47.5kg x6x3 (I think that's a rep PB for bench in general but +1 only) Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 70kg x8x2 (+2 rep PB)

Workout from Saturday 17/12 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x2 70kg x1 77.5kg x4x2 (rep PB) 77.5kg x5 (another rep PB) Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x8x3 (Finally got all the reps on all sets) Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 (Pause) 70kg x8x3

Workout from Thursday 14/12 Pause Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x2 57.5kg x4x4 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x8x3 (last set was 6, this time I lost track of the amount of reps) Pause Deadlift (Knee) 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x4 67.5kg x4x4

Workout from Thursday 11/12 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 70kg x2 82.5kg x4x3 Pause Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 47.5kg x4x3 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 67.5kg x8x3

Workout from Sunday 10/12 Deadlift (Sumo) 50kg x3x5 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x8x2 45kg x7

Workout from Friday 8/12 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x2 70kg x1 75kg x4x3 Pause Bench Press 20kg x6 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x6x2 45kg x5 42.5kg x8 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 (Pause) 70kg x8 (I had two more sets to do but called it a day. Everything's sore.)

Workout from Thursday 07/12 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 70kg x2 80kg x4x4 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x8 45kg x7x2 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 65kg x8x3

Workout from Saturday 2/12 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 65kg x1 72.5kg x4x3 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x3 42.5kg x10 42.5kg x9 42.5kg x8 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 (Pause) 67.5kg x8x3

Workout from Thursday 30/11 Pause Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x2 57.5kg x4x4 Pause Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x2 42.5kg x8x3 (last set was 7, this time I lost track of the amount of reps) Pause Deadlift (Knee) 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 67.5kg x4x4

Workout from Tuesday 28/11 Deadlift 50kg x3x2 (Sumo) 60kg x3 70kg x1 77.5kg x4x3 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x3 42.5kg x10 42.5kg x9 42.5kg x8 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 62.5kg x8x3

Workout from Saturday 25/11 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 70kg x4x3 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x3 40kg x10x3 Deadlift 50kg x5 60kg x3 65kg x8x3

Workout from Thursday 23/11 Pause Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x2 55kg x4x4 Pause Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x2 40kg x10x3 (last set was 9) Pause Deadlift (Knee) 65kg x4x4

Workout from Tuesday 21/11 Deadlift 50kg x5 60kg x3 70kg x1 75kg x4x3 Close Grip Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 35kg x3 40kg x10x3 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x8x3

Workout from Saturday 18/11 Squat 20kg x10 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 67.5kg x4x3 Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 47.5kg x1 52.5kg x1x2 55kg x1 57.5kg xF 47.5kg x4 Deadlift 62.5kg x8x3

Workout from Thursday 16/11 Pause Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 52.5kg x4x4 Pause Deadlift (Knee) 62.5kg x4x4 Slingshot Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x1 52.5kg x8x3

Workout from Tuesday 14/11 Deadlift 60kg x5 65kg x3 72.5kg x4x3 Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x3 57.5kg x8x3 Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x8x2 (+2 rep PB!) 45kg x7 (7th was a grind again so I didn't go for an 8th)

Still alive. But not checking in much because I've been busy. I have not been sticking to calories but I'm on reverse so I guess going a bit over is better than going a bit under I hope. My weight hasn't changed since I started the reverse. (Although it had some huge spikes.) Sleep is going OK though. Water too for the most part. It's hard to drink a lot of water during the weekends.

Workout from Saturday 11/11 Squat 20kg x10 40kg x5 50kg x3 60kg x1 65kg x4x4 Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x1 50kg x3x4 Deadlift 60kg x8x3

Workout from Thursday 10/11 Pause Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x4x4 Slingshot Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 40kg x3 45kg x1 50kg x10x3 Pause Deadlift (Knee) 60kg x4x4

Workout from Thursday 02/11 Deadlift 50kg x5 60kg x3 70kg x4x3 Bench Press 20kg x10 30kg x5 42.5kg x10x2 42.5kg x9 (9th was a grinder and I lost tightness so I didn't go for a 10th. My butt stayed on the bench on all reps though. I credit that to my new t-shirts.) Squat 20kg x5 40kg x5 50kg x2 55kg x8x3

I'd happily join in on that as well. But I would expect them to make working hours in summer longer. Hm, maybe I'd rather work longer hours in the winter when I don't feel like going outside and shorter hours in summer. I'm back on tracking and everything today.