I do know that I started observing Lent last year when I gave up facebooking. Arguably nobody ever should be on facebook, so admittedly that was rather weak. This year under the influence of the General Epistle of James, I resolved to give up "all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness," and under my own influence, I gave up the rest days. I did not know but genuinely wanted to see what would happen to my squat, and I thought I could also achieve moral perfection.
Sometimes I'm overly optimistic.
Let me dispense with the moral perfection.
I was by my own admission - and possibly overlooking some small, negligible even, omissions and commissions - entirely perfect until somewhere about the third week of Lent. My pride had been subdued. I had not facebooked. I had not blogged. I had not spoken ill of anyone.
And then I was in the gym because of course I was going to squat. I was standing idle in the back room where all the really good stuff with free weights happens, and a guy walked in, looked at me and asked, "are you using the leg press at all?"
And I did what I had to do, which was to laugh.
And this laugh was not, as James the Apostle might have it, "pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."
No.
No, this laugh was as James the Apostle might say, "not from above, earthy, sensual, devilish. [With] envying and strife, [giving rise to] confusion and every evil work."
No, this laugh was as I, James the Lesser, might say, a full on, "what the fuck is wrong with you" laugh.
So with moral perfection a foregone dream, I attended to squatting every day.
The program itself was easy. I would go to the gym every day without exception and squat:
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 2
Then if I felt good, and I almost always did, I would squat the only other weight I used which was a little bit more than 315.
I usually worked in 20 pound increments, so it functioned like this:
335 is only a little bit more than 315. Also 335 is less than 365. On many days I did 365, and I believe that on any day I could have done 365, so 365 is a little more than 315, and 335 is so much less than 365 that it's clearly only a little more than 315. Now 335 is 315 with a couple more little plates, and 45 pound plates are not much bigger than the ones used to yield 335, so 405 is a little bit more than 315. After 405 I was only adding little plates which we can see really do nothing, so anything I did over 405 was a little bit more than 315.
Never going heavier than a little bit more than 315 did a couple things. I rarely ground any reps, and I rarely got excited or felt I had to psych up before a lift.
The only other thing I added to the program was that on days when I felt good and made three or four jumps a little over 315, I'd strip the bar down to either 315 or a little bit more than 315 and do back off sets of 5. I never did more than 3 x 5 x a little bit more than 315.
And I just did that every day for 46 days.
The squatting itself was easy. Usually the hardest thing I did was the first rep at 135.
Moderately more difficult but entirely possible as demonstrated was getting to one of the gyms I use everyday. Somewhere around the time I failed morally, and possibly as a consequence of my failure, the water pump on my truck broke, and my truck was entombed in ice about 12 miles south of home.
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| Snow Truck from Archives. Ice Truck was Much Worse |
My truck broke after work on a Saturday night right about midnight and left me stranded on Highway 287. Now that I know I can squat 46 days in a row, I realize I should have simply dug a snow cave, had a refreshing sleep, and in the morning called someone for assistance or perhaps even walked home. At the time, however, that simply didn't occur to me. I did the one thing I could think of which was to call the One Friend in all the World who Might Possibly Still be Awake and Willing to Drive through a Near Blizzard at 1 am. And actually maybe this happened before my fall from grace because the One Friend in all the World who Might Possibly Still be Awake and Willing to Drive through a Near Blizzard at 1 am was awake and drove through a near blizzard to pick me up. The road conditions were such that we got back to Longmont at about 2 am, and we did the only thing that makes sense under those circumstances which was to go to Winchell's and eat cinnamon crunch doughnuts.
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| 2 am Doughnuts |
So the next day I woke up later than usual after going to sleep much later than usual and had very little time to figure how I was going to get to work. I borrowed a car, went to the gym and squatted, and went to work.
Almost above all else I hate broken trucks, so the day after the next day which was a Monday I did not go to work. I arranged to have my truck towed to a repair shop, and I walked to the gym and squatted. Over the next week while I begged rides and borrowed cars to get to work, I walked to the gym through the snow and squatted.
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| Broken Water Pump |
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| Walking to the Gym |
Some days, but very few thankfully, I was sick, so I went to the gym and squatted. On those few days I would just squat 315 and leave.
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| Resting on the Bar on a Sick Day. 315 all Day. |
To sum up the essence of the thing, then, I just squatted every day.
Not very far into the 46 days I started to feel like like someone had driven railroad spikes into my IT bands along my thighs. On good days it would feel like the spikes ran from just above my knees to about two thirds of the way to my hip socket. On bad days it would feel like the spikes went from just above the knee to just below the hip socket, and then where one one would expect to find the last spike right into the hip socket, there was actually only a common nail whose small diameter allowed it to be more accurately centered on the joint.
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| Railroad Spike |
And on those days with the railroad spikes which were really all of the days, I squatted. The first rep with 135 which I mentioned before seemed to heat up the railroad spikes, and by the time I hit the mandatory 315 double, the spikes were almost always hot and pliable enough to allow me to do a little bit more than 315.
On most of the 46 days, I talked little or not at all. Prior to my fall from grace I was trying to put aside all superfluity of naughtiness, and after the fall I was trying not to be a total asshole. It helped, I think, that by and large everyone was afraid of me.
But I did over the course of 46 days have some entertaining conversations, and my favorite occurred just yesterday on the 45th day:
Guy, "You're the only one in here who squats."
Me, "Yeah."
Possibly my second favorite conversation happened today.
Guy, "That's some heavy weight."
Me, "It's not heavy until you hemorrhage."
And that of course was not false bravado as I knew I was only squatting a little more than 315.
As far as what happened after squatting 46 days in a row, I'm not sure. I know that before Lent I could squat a 405 double anytime I truly wanted to, and today I squatted a 420 double and a 425 single that was fast and light. I only used a belt one time during Lent which was a week ago when I hit a 420 double. Today and all other days I was belt-less and almost entirely calm even when squatting 425. I do know that a year and a half ago when I was definitely at my strongest as proved by a competition max of 465, 420 was about the most I could could get a full depth double at, and for that I had to be belted and psyched up. Also, of course, I had to take three or four rest days before squatting heavy, whereas now I just walk in and do it.
I cannot prove it; I am not currently interested in proving it, but I believe that if I worked on my technique, hired a coach who knows how to peak a lifter who squats everyday, relearned how to use a belt, and wrapped my knees tight enough to cut off circulation, I could squat 500 now.
What I really got out of squatting 46 days in a row was a deep internalization of something I've intellectually understood for a few years now. If you want to do something, you really have to stop all unnecessary talking and do the required work with no exceptions.
I learned that anyone who claims to have had a leg day on facebook does not know either what a leg or a day is. Let me not be thought arrogant. When I wasn't squatting I did some research into some of the guys who do or did squat, and I'm aware that a few guys did or do have leg days. The thing is someone else writes about them.
Oh, and my genitals appear larger now. Unfortunately I cannot tell if this is a real gain or if the whole assembly is just hanging lower before eventually falling off.
Tomorrow, or today as this is published, I'll learn what a rest day is.
And after that I think I'll squat everyday.
I might achieve perfection.
Again, my exercise induced castrated corpse with the railroad spikes might be found embarrassingly close to the beginning of the road to enlightenment.
Either way I, if no one else, will know that I had been alive on all those days I squatted.
