Hypertrophy

Leg Ext - 1x18@150
Leg Press - 1x20@310
Seated Calf - 1x12@190
Hang Knee 1x21@20#
Then:
6x50m@ 60"
10x25m@ 45"
300m cool down

BW after swim- 202#

The tempo of the lift has a MAJOR impact on the number of reps I can do before failure, and "failure" is still a bit nebulous for me too.  Obviously the more momentum I have the more reps I can do, but intellectually I know that, the number of reps is not that important.  What IS important is consistency.  I have to be sure to keep the tempo the same or progress is immeasurable.  On hypertrophy days, my goal is a 4 sec tempo on the concentric and the eccentric portions and a 2 sec hold in max contraction position.  That's really, really slow.  Today I trained with Chad and I noticed that I was able to dig in a little deeper to the reserves.  Sqeeze out a couple more reps.  Put 10# more on the bar.  Let the ego do it's job a little and benefit from it.

The swim is starting to degrade into "recovery," which in my case means lackadaisical.  This month I'm going to try and get back on the wagon with diet, and steady state cardio and I'm going back and forth on adding an additional workout day.  Maybe go; T, W, Th, F?  Progress and adaptation are the measure of success, so if I try it, the number one thing I will look for is consistent progress from day to day workouts.

Apparently my "hem-hawing" is typical and transcending other aspects of my life.  It's interesting to realize because I never really thought of myself as indecisive, yet the feedback from workouts, introspection and other people in my life tell me that I was wrong.  I have been behaving indecisively in the past.  This explains quite a bit actually and it needs to change.  I wasn't always behaving like this, and now it's time to "turn the filter down."