In Other News

Still lifting sporadically. My hip/back pain is gone and a few weeks ago I deadlifted 400ish pounds for five reps without anything snapping. But still taking it easy and will now alternate heavy squats and deadlifts week to week. A few years ago I got decently strong on the Advanced Texas Method program, where you don't squat or pull heavy very often. I'm looking forward to a summer of uninterrupted training and hopefully some gainz.

In other training news:

Bought a lacrosse ball to massage those hard-to-get-at muscles inside the hip and between the scapulas. I've only used it a few times but it feels good. Squats are feeling great - last night I hit 465x2 after a ton of warmup sets, with none of the usual low back, knee and hip soreness. Not bad after squatting zero times in three weeks.

Will experiment a bit with occlusion training for the arms and legs. I only tried it a few times and the pump was painful and uncomfortable, i.e. promising. I especially like the idea for leg training, as I should be able to get a massive pump using low weights, so less wear and tear on the joints. It's probably not a good idea to use them while squatting, but I will try them out on leg press sets.

Incline and BTN presses are staying in the rotation. I'm still very weak at incline presses, so more work on these will hopefully translate to a few more pounds on the bench press. I'm back on my favorite bench program and so far it's going well. Hoping to ride it out to a modest single with 365, then maybe run it one more time.