Late 2020 Texas Method Run

[CommanderFun]

Saturday 12/5/2020 (Volume Day)

Squat 265x5x5
Bench Press 207.5x5x5
Power Cleans 125x3x5

Back on the grind after a "reduced stress" weak. Did 4 days this past week, each day was just one lift. At the beginning I kept the volume lighter, but by the time I took a crack at overhead pressing on Thursday I decided to go for 5x5 and pulled it off. So today was a return to the program. Still had mood issues coming out of squats, but it got better as time went on and I put my mind more to what I was doing. Left knee is STILL giving me fucking problems in the last two sets. It feels like the arch in my left foot actually collapses and I cannot will any of the muscles there to hold it back in place. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do about this shit.

Benches were fine. Benches are always fine these days. Somehow these have become the easiest lift for me. When my first LP ended I could only end up doing 200x5 for a single top set. I think maybe it's because my bench at home is higher off the ground than the ones at the gym I was previously going to. I had a lot of trouble developing good leg drive because those things were so close to the floor and my legs are so very long.

Dusted off the power cleans and decided I'd try using them for the volume day pull. I had been turned off to these because I've had such a terrible time trying to get them right, and the weight I could do with them always seemed so low compared to what I could deadlift. After seeing Rip tell a guy with similar issues to keep cleaning when he asked in this past Q&A episode, I figured I'd try and keep doing them. It's only once a week, and I've had issues trying to balance pulling in this program anyways. Maybe power cleans are just the right "goldilocks" level of enough to work as volume day stress but not enough to eat into intensity day. We shall see come Wednesday.

[CommanderFun]

Monday 12/7/2020 (Light day/Volume Pressing)

Squat 240x5x3
Seated Overhead Press 127.5x5x5
Pulldowns 212.5x5x5

Everything went smooth here. Nothing to make note of.

[CommanderFun]

Wednesday 12/9/2020 (intensity day)

Seated Overhead Press 142.5x5
Squat 295x5
Bench 227.5x5
Deadlift 380x5

Today marked a return to LP PRs for squat and deadlift, and new 5 rep PRs for bench and press. Things started strong, I think I'll be able to make progress next week on everything...everything except the deadlift that is. I don't know what the hell is going on with this lift. I had a 380 for 5 going at the end of LP, and since then I've gotten a 3" belt for the lift and it feels like it's not providing much of any assistance. 380 felt harder today than it did when I got to it on LP. I also noticed toward the end of the workout as I began to setup for my deadlift warmups I was feeling the same "psychological fatigue" when I attempted to do a volume day workout last week. Maybe I'm not entirely in the clear from withdrawals from this medicine yet, I don't know. I hope my body gets used to not having it damned soon, because I do feel stronger without it.

[CommanderFun]

Tried doing volume day today on 12/12/2020. My knee is in a lot of pain after forcing myself through three sets of squats. My mental state is a wreck. I think I am just not in a good place to be trying to run what's probably the most stressful option for an intermediate program right now. Between going off the meds and the state the world's in I am just driving myself insane. Lifting is supposed to combat depression, if it's making it worse it seems to me something is very wrong.