Road To Recovery - Squats

So it's creeping up on 4 years being disabled now and as the years go by I am gaining more and more freedom in my life. I think most likely the smartest decision I ever made was to start training to eventually get back into powerlifting.

Because of the lack of stability in my legs I avoided squatting. I jumped into deadlifts instead and just trained my bench. About 4 months ago after a broken toe I had healed up finally decided to shoot for some squats.

I first squat work out was pretty solid. I had no idea what I was going to be able to do, might even not have been able to do them. But I lucked out and did two warm ups of 135lbs x 5 and 225lbs x 5 then I jumped into 315lbs x 5 for 3 sets.

Eventually a few weeks later I increased a set one of the top three sets to 365 x 5

For the past month or so my training of the squat looked like this:
135lbs x 8
225lbs x 5
315lbs x 5 (last rep 3-5 second pause)
365lbs x 5 (last few weeks I started going last rep 3-5 second pause)
315lbs x 8 (last few weeks I started going last rep 3-5 second pause)

Now truthfully these weights aren't massive but I have so many things working against me.

A) I am disabled
B) I am weighing about 345lbs - 355lbs right now so you know I am squatting extra weight on my body
C) I am not using any lifting gear not even a belt or knee wraps (just some chalk for grip)
D) Unlike the average person I am going rock bottom hence why I can pause at the bottom no problem. Every rep I sit down basically and rocket up.

Well this week I was feeling adventurous and felt the big 4 plate squat coming on. I knew my legs were feeling strong today was the day.

I managed to do:
135lbs x 8
225lbs x 5
315lbs x 5 (last rep 3-5 second pause)
365lbs x 5 (last rep 3-5 second pause)
385lbs x 3 was easy to do and wanted to save energy for the next set
405lbs x 3 just as easy as the last set but didn't want to over do it
315lbs x 8 (last rep 3-5 second pause)

After it was all said and done I realized my idea of being cautious and holding back because of my legs was rather silly. 4 plates a side felt quite good to me and I know next week I am gonna put my effort into 405 for a set of 5.

It's rather funny how unstable I am in every day life due to my legs but get me in the gym or the ring and I am a monster on fire.

I would like to thank SVN Fuel and SVN Canada - Supplements, Vitamins, Nutrition Canada for sponsoring me on my road to recovery.