So far I’ve been doing squats, bench presses, and deadlifts in poor form so I’ll have to lower my working weights so that I get better ranges of motion. From there I will go up slowly until I achieve my goals of:

• 2 × 7 × 150 squats
• 2 × 7 × 110 bench presses
• 2 × 7 × 210 deadlifts
• 2 × 7 × 75 presses

… all in good form. Right now I’m doing:

• 2 × 7 × 145 squats
• 2 × 7 × 80 bench presses
• 2 × 7 × 150 deadlifts
• 2 × 7 × 50 presses

… most in poor form, however. I cannot honestly increase intensity further because of that, but then again I cannot discount the strength I’ve gained from working out in admittedly poor form. The solution, I think, would be to lower the weights slightly so that I could go back to increasing intensity, this time with good form.

My new workout plan for the next round of exercising would then be:

• 2 × 7 × 130 squats (poor form correction)
• 2 × 7 × 85 bench presses (good form already)
• 2 × 7 × 150 deadlifts (good form practice)
• 2 × 7 × 50 presses (good form practice)

To reach the 210 deadlifts mark, I’ll need to acquire some weight hooks (or whatever they’re called) since gloves don’t do it for me anymore and foam makes my grip weaken.

With a 5-lb per week progression, squat goals will take 4 weeks to achieve, bench press and press goals will take 5 weeks, deadlift goals will take 12 weeks (possibly less, as I’ll attempt to get an accelerated head-start with better grip).