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Day after front squats woke up with sore quads (yes!), shoulders, sore hams(??!),  lats (?), upper back (!), chest (!),  abs, and all sorts of muscles I didn't even know I had! Even adductors were sore. Only downside is my knees are sore, which I think was from quarter squats. I might not do those any more.

I don't get why front squats are so effective. Could it also be because I did both back and front squats? Back squats don't normally make me sore. I was completely fresh, did no chinups or pulls, just squats, front squats and some bench presses. Normally bps dont make me sore either. perhaps the combination of back squats with front squats do. hmmm. tantalising.

Yep, but if it didn't make anything sore i'd know it wasn't training anything differently than the ordinary backsquat so it's a good sign that it's doing new things to my body which is awesome. How come you can't do them, flexibility?

Just came bck from a wicked pickup game with my friends, we played 3vs3. The best thing about playing with these guys is they're so competitive so everyone is trying hard and it's a good challenge. I am happy to say my ankle didn't bother me for a change. Feels good man. See if pickup games were this good, i'd play them more often just for the sheer enjoyment.

  Sounds like a good plan, the only thing I would caution you of is using ONLY front squats for the lower body, especially with your build.  It very often ends up in knee issues, especially when switching from a more bent over style squat.  Push one glute/hamstring exercise up along with your front squat, and you can easily avoid these issues.

 If you dont have problems loading the front squat due to the rack position, and keep some solid hamstring work in your program, it can work very well as your primary knee dominant lift in your set up.

Training
SQ 2x125kg (PR), 9x100kg (PR)
FS 3x3x80kg (PR)
BP 8x75kg (PR)
RDL 5x105kg (PR), 10x85kg (PR)
Chins - 10 sets (total reps I think was 34.)

So I was looking forward to squatting heavy for the first time since adding front squats. Would it make for a  better BS? I wanted to know. And I got under 125kg, did 2 challenging reps, and didn't have a 3rd rep. I thought I had bombed the set, but looking at the video, it was actually much better form than expected, which was surprising to me. Then I did the backoff set for a new rep record with 100kg and managed 9 reps. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be since the first time I did 100kg for reps I managed 7 while keeping a rep or two in the tank and that was about a month ago. This 9 was pretty close to max. My guess is adding the FS has built up a bit of fatigue, so even though i'm stronger now from it, it's hidden by the extra fatigue. 

Front squats were good. Oh I must say I have figured out how to hold the bar properly. It actually has to be further from my body than I had thought initially. I have it just on my delts now, and it's fairly comfy there, I don't have the piercing pain of having the bar sitting on my bones now!

BP - I got a really hard single at 85kg which was disappointing, I thought it would be a bad bench day, but somehow I managed 8 reps with 75kg which made me happy. According to the 1RM calculator, going from 8x75 to 10x75 will take my max from 93kg up to 100kg! (yay the magic number!). Will be trying to get that 10x75 this month. Hopefully once I have the 10 reps, then I can spend the following month mastering the shit out of the 75-80kg range and working towards 10x80 which is probably my main bench training goal for the moment.

RDLs - I was only supposed to do a heavy triple with 105kg, but I kept going and got 5. That's with taking a 5kg jump from last week. I could have gotten greedy and tried for 110kg but there is no hurry. I'll keep adding 5kg/week for as long as I can.

Finished off with 10 sets of chins while cooking dinner. This got a bit chaotic but i'm glad I didn't skip it.

So a good end to this weeks training, look forward to next week and getting a 125kgx3 PR on back squats.

Skillz work
80 mins shooting practice over 2 sessions of 60 and 20 mins each

Some observations. I am starting to get reeel comfortable with the shooting fingers spread out grip on the basketball. I'm not quite as sharp with the new form as my usual old one, but when the shot goes in, it goes in oh-so-softly so I know i'm on the right track. That softness I've read about in books is showing up in my own shot. But in conjunction with a stance change, i'm finding a good rhythm with a spread grip which evaded my earlier forays into the new grip. I just need to practice it more and it will become automatic and then i'll become a reliable shooter.

The stance change came about from reviewing my footage a few weeks ago. I noticed I am always UPRIGHT on the court. It makes me look like a retard and I had no idea I was doing. No one ever taught me to play basketball otherwise I would have learnt the correct way early. You want to be low to the ground, drop hips down, ass back, get in that athletic stance. This way you can accelerate rapidly in any direction, whether going up in the air for a jumpshot or rebound, or forwards for a drive, or whatever. So staying low for the first time by dropping hips down rather than my first attempt last week by idiotically bending over and finding it silly, worked wonders. I practice driving to the hoop a few times, and was surprised how quickly I could go from the first step, to layup just by changing the stance. This might not sound much, but considering I would normally be completely upright, it keeps the ball and dribble low, knees bent for easier acceleration and harder for defense to read if you're always in that position. Can't wait to try this out in a game. Just realised it will do good things for my defense too, I usually rely on my reach to keep up with a defender, but i'll be able to play much better D if I stay low. Good stuff.

Summarising, stance change + spread grip = decent jumpshot release, ball comes out nicely now and when it drops in, it drops in softly. Even shots from long range dropped softly, kind of like Ray Allen's shots.

Abs are super sore, hurts when I sneeze.

The worst thing about being on a basketball court is seeing that sexy ring just sitting there, and all you wanna do is just dunk the shit out of it. But I must wait a while, let the ankle be fully healed first. It's so frustrating holding back and not trying to jump though.. esp when I look at the other logs here and see what others guys are jumping regularly in their training and wishing I could too do that.

Training
SQ 5x107.5,6x105,5x100
FS 3x3x82.5 (PR)
BP 6,5x78.5

Shitty session, have started dreading gyming lately. Unlocked a squat bonus tho, found that all along i'd not been using legs during the last 1/2 of backsquats. If you run the video backwards it shows it more clearly, just a straight up good morning. On the last set today I made the fix, pushing hard thru the floor, using leg power and saw it made a big change in addressing the GM finish.

FS are starting to get heavy, which I don't mind, except form isn't so good. I didn't stay very tight at the bottom (i think) and this caused more ankle flexion than i'd like, which bothered my injury. That sucks too. I was hoping I could train pain free for a while but maybe it's just a form thing and I can work around it next workout. Will see.

So form improvements needed.

I think part of the reason i'm dreading workouts is the sheer number of sets to work thru, every session. Today I was scheduled to do 6 sets of squats not including warmup sets. Just gets a bit overwhelming, although I realise if I was doing something like smolov i'd be doing 10 sets so in that context it shouldn't bother me too much, but smolov type intensity isn't something I want every workout, that would fucking suck over a time period including many weeks or months. So have to adjust my volume cos the way it is, it's unsustainable. I wasn't even fully recovered given the 2 day weekend break after eating like a fat cunt which makes me doubt very much I could pull all this off while cutting. Maybe take one scheduled set away from back squats each session to start with.

^Thanks bud.

Played a lot of pickup basketball - was fun. The only downside is when there is no ref, people tend to get carried away with fouling, and I saw some guys on the other team get hurt, which was unfortunate. I don't understand why people don't realise it's stupid to play dangerous D but I managed to get away unscathed. It's not worth it jumping into traffic and risk an injury just for some pickup game, I picked off open jumpers and got some nice assists which made me happier. Looks my basketball season is over too - which means I can focus on getting my lifts moving now. The annoying thing is I was the only guy running up and down the court at full speed after about 2 hours of playing full court pickup ball without subbing out - i guess I got that wretched fitness just a little too late.. lol. I struggled bigtime in the earlier games of the season, and now that i'm well conditioned, no more games. Well there are games but i've opted out of the team so effectively they aren't any left.

I spent a lot of time shooting afterwards and could reliably most of my shots. Was nailing that corner 3 hard. Am beginning to realise there is no special trick to it, you just need to put in the hours and clock up a whole load of shots to become a good shooter.

I met a guy who plays for a good team (they play the top division and his team just won the finals), and he says they have 8 people already and they're trying to shed players. I was really hoping he'd ask me to play but alas it wasn't to be! He's probably the strongest 5 foot something guy i've ever played with. He guarded me really well, and later I found out he plays as a point guard which explains his amazing handles. Was interesting talking to him. He complimented me on my court vision and passing, saying he liked how I was always looking for the pass. I told him I play pseudo-point for my team because our point guard doesn't want the ball, he found that hilarious. Hopefully can run into him again sometime. Playing with a guy like that improves you just by being on the same court.

Also what is it about asking for a guys number that people don't want to share it? I've always gotten a number of a girl if I asked her. But with guys, it's hit and miss. Mostly miss these days. lol.

Training
SQ 1x127.5, 3x117.5
FSQ 3x3x85 (PR)
Sprints 5x~30m (Best Time: 04:65, equalled previous PR)
Jumps - some running some standing (PR hit the rim 1.5" below my wrist. You'd think I'd be dunking easily by now )
BP 1x87.5, 8x75
RDLs 3x110, 8x87.5 (PRs)
10 sets chinups

Workout was too long. I need to figure out how to better schedule this stuff, I can't be spending all day in teh gym like this!!

If my standing reach is 98" - means I need 22" to hit the rim. I measure 9" at that point below my wrist, so does that mean my RVJ is 31"? I find that hard to believe considering the highly athletic Russell Westbrook has a max vert of 36" and we have a similar height and reach and i'm highly unathletic. 5" difference in vert isn't much esp considering i'm rocking too much bodyfat atm. Something has to be wrong somewhere??

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/russell-westbrook-5062/

Thinking about vertical. Once i've cut to a lean bodyweight of 80kg, I will add Plyos to my training. I'm confident that will be the best time to add them since i'll be light enough to spare my joints and tendons and hopefully by then my ankle will be fully healed and able to handle the stresses associated with plyometrics. I'll also hopefully have a 1.75BW back squat then (by maintaining my current  backsquat of ~ 3x130kg BW), and optimistically a 1.5BW front squat, which would make me pretty well placed in terms of strength for dabbling in the elastic stuff. I hate how I move so slowly, and I can't see more strength improving my reaction speed and step. Hopefully that's not too long away now.