My Journey to 440

So, it started in February at 185lbs and culminated with a PR of 365 in late March with my good friend Johannes spotting me on his visit from Germany. Not bad for 6 weeks. Now, previously, in 2007 I did a 4 week cycle with Mark Reifkind when we were training and I was able to do 307 for 3 sets of 3. So, I was not surprised by this March PR.

I took all of April, May and the first half of June off of squatting due to mainly traveling and teaching abroad. I was able to workout but nothing like when I am home at the gym in terms of weight, etc. Instead it was bodyweight squats, pull-ups push-ups, core work, running and some yoga.

Come middle June Kai and I enter an 8 week training cycle, squatting using the Westside principles (to some extent with respect to Westside) we tried to imitate the best we could using the box, dynamic method with bands and a 3 near max workouts over the 8 week period one in which Kai and I both hit 405 for 2 singles.

So, today, 8 weeks later I came in and did the full below parallel squat of 405, 425 and 440 leading to 2 PR's. There is much too attribute to the numbers and the most important is to exploration of the body, movement and training regimen. Always, studying learning and listening to whats going on, it all came together, like it should (in my opinion).

So, for not having a lot of actual squatting experience I am stoked and I thank people like Louie Simmons of Westside, Mark Reifkind for helping me back in 2007 and Kai and the rest of the Lab crew for working with me to explore how we can get smarter, stronger, more technical and skilled and thus establish PR's on a consistent basis...the journey continues and truly the number is irrelevant.

For me it is the journey and the learning, sharing, experiencing, challenging, practicing, playing, exploring, and the fact that I can, we can do this and we are taking advantage and working together to achieve and improve day in and day out.

PS: please check out Facebook where I post many of my articles these days, including "the lab, exploring human potential" fan page and "Joga, Yoga with Joe Sarti" fan page and of course my josephsarti profile.

Thank you for your support and interest!