The Body of a Powerlifter? + New Deadlift Personal Best!
My workout last night was awesome - started with deadlifts, followed by power cleans (a new lift for me) and finishing up with some quad work and some sprints on the treadmill. I felt stronger than I ever have, and also felt more confident thanks to some comments I received at the gym. Here’s what happened.
Half way through my deadlifts, a younger guy came over to me and started talking about deadlifts. His best lift was one for 405, last year. He saw the kind of weight I was lifting, in the low 300’s and asked how long I had been lifting. I said for 8 months, and he complimented me on my progress. He said that watching me had given him the itch to start deadlifting again. He had been working on squats so we talked a little about that, then he said (more or less) ‘I can see why you do well on squats and deadlifts - you’ve got the body of a powerlifter.’
I didn’t know what to say - I had never thought of myself that way. I said ‘Yeah, I’m not very tall’. He said ‘You’re broad and have a low centre of gravity. That makes it easier for you to lift a lot of weight than me since I’m taller and not as thick.’ We were finished talking, soon I set up for a 355 deadlift, which would be a new personal best. I did the lift, and he was again nearby and he asked me how much weight I just lifted. When I told him, he said that I would have no trouble getting up to 400 by the end of the summer (my goal was the end of the year!). What a confidence booster! For a fit guy a lot younger than me to view me in that light means a lot to me.
I went on with my workout, doing power cleans next. This is a new exercise for me, this was only my third time doing them. I just used low weight, making sure I do them right, but I did get up to the point where I did 135 with good form. Feeling confident, I put on 20 more pounds, but I couldn’t get it to my chest. It was then I realized why that exercise is called ‘power’ clean. To be successful in getting the heavier weight to your shoulder you’ve got to have a tremendous amount of effort behind your liftoff to ‘power’ that weight up to where you want it to go. I set up, focused, and did it the second time. Not perfect form, but I did it. I’m looking forward to getting better at this in the months to come.
I finished off my lifting by doing some quad work. I did supersets on two machines, thigh adductor and extensions. I did a warmup set, and felt so good I decided to go heavy on these to see how much I could do. I did 3 working sets and my max was 180×12 on adductor and 170×10 on extension, all with good form. I was amazed by my strength on these machines. These numbers are way above what I thought I was capable of and are great improvements from only a couple of months ago.
In between quad supersets I was approached by a teen that I’d never spoken to before. He asked me to tell him some good shoulder exercises. As we chatted I found out he’d just turned 16 and had only been working out for a month. I asked him if he liked it, he said he loved it. I encouraged him to stick with it, learn proper form on all the exercises, and told him that his diet would make a huge difference to his results and progress. He asked other questions, wondering what I did to get where I am today. For me, this means a lot to my confidence. The results of my bodybuilding was evidence to him of what could be achieved in the gym. Helping to inspire and motivate someone else on their own bodybuilding journey is immensely satisfying. It’s something I’ve been hoping I could do and now to be in that position is wonderful. It motivates me to keep working hard and improving.
What a great workout for my body and spirit!
