5 x 5 (mostly)

Front Squat x 5
45-45-55-65-65-65-65(f)-65

Bench Press x 5
45-45-55-65(f)-65(PR)-65-65(f)-65(f)

Ow. 65# is heavy, and I will definitely not be moving past this weight in either exercise next week.

With the front squat, if I stayed really focused, I could get through all the reps, but if my attention wandered at all, that was it. I failed on the first rep of round 2 just because I stopped thinking about what I was doing, so I counted it as a false start. I failed on rep 3 or 4 of round 4 when I tried to power through feeling light headed instead of standing and breathing through it before I started the next rep. (Dumb).

Tom - one of the frequent weight-lifters we've become friendly with - gave me some good tips on my squat form - unfortunately, it was after I was done with all of my sets. ... I'm drawing a bit of a blank at the moment on what exactly they were though ... Crap! ... the main thing I remember is "use a wider stance". I had been using a stance that was just about shoulder width. He said that I wasn't keeping my back up and pitching forward as a result, causing me to do more work with my back than my legs, and having my legs further apart would help. I tried a couple reps, with an empty bar and it felt like it probably would work better - if I weren't already totally knackered. He also said that I wasn't staying tight all the way trough the movement - that - like with the bench press - everything should be tight all the way through the movement.

The Bench Press was ... HARD ... and it hurt my ass. I'll say that again. I hurt my ass doing bench press. LOL - WTF? Well - here's the thing - I had to clench everything to get that bar to go up, and my right hip/glute cramped. A bit.

The sets I failed I always failed on the 5th rep - i just couldn't QUITE eek out that last bit of effort. Many thanks to my excellent spotter (Daniel <3>:-p)