Plan Progress

I'm wrapping up the Strength-preparation phase of the Morris plan this week. (Earlier, I said that this wasn't described in the book, but it is. It's just maybe not in an obvious location.) My ramp up has gone fine, but I might have progressed to the heavier weights just a little too quickly. I haven't been sore at all, but I am feeling the fatigue. I'm sure some of it has to do with resuming training with more seriousness and being back at work after a long Christmas break.

I've scheduled a little more rest this week to get ready for the next Strength phase. I want to start the phase feeling fresh because I've heard it's a tough one. The main thing to get done this week is to do the 1RM (1 rep max) test. I probably won't actually go to 1RM, but maybe 3-4RM and calculate 1RM from there. It will be close enough for me, and safer.

I have been thinking a little bit about the lifts I'm doing. I had good success last year in doing 1-leg versions of the squat and deadlift. The benefits to doing the 1-leg exercises are that it's easier on your back, you don't need as much weight, and it uses more stabilizing muscles. The drawbacks are that you can't lift as much and reduced range of motion in the lift (for me, anyway).

I think the fact that you can't lift as much weight is probably not a big deal for an amateur. (By "not lift as much", I mean that on two legs, you could probably lift more than double what you could lift on one leg, since stability is much improved.)

The reduced range of motion is what's got me thinking, particularly for the squat. Because of the more stable position, I can definitely go much deeper into a squat on two legs than I can one one. It seems like I should at least be getting to a knee bend that matches my max knee bend on the bike, and I know I'm not there right now. Relative to the bike, it means that I'm missing out on the top part of the pedal stroke, which is definitely important for generating power.

How to remedy this? I guess first I need to verify if this is a balance issue or a strength issue. I guess the test here is to back off on the weight, try to go deeper and see what happens. Now that I'm thinking about it more, I suspect it is mainly a strength issue.

I wish that I'd thought about this before I started the prep phase. C'est la vie. It will be a little hard on the ego to back off on the weight, but I'm pretty sure I'll get more of a benefit from doing the exercise properly through a wider range of motion. In fact, I may improve substantially on the bike if the muscles really were weak at the "low" part of the squat (top of the pedal stroke).