My BodyBlog

Planned to start my workout with deadlifts today, but my shoulders and back felt a little tight (no doubt from the overhead presses I did Xmas eve!) so instead I started with some back exercises to loosen things up and get the blood flowing.  I set up for some bent-over barbell rows and only planned to do a couple of sets with low weight, but they felt really good today so I started adding weight and before I knew it I was over 200 pounds and I ended up doing 231×2, which I knew was a personal best!  When I got home and looked up my stats, I saw that my previous best several months ago was 210, and my max lift about a year ago was 201!  Another record shattered!  Must be the turkey….

So, what about deadlifts?  My past experience is that if I leave them until the end of the workout, I am usually too tired to complete the heavier lifts.  But what the heck, I could still do some quality lifts as part of my back workout.  I did 135×10 warmup, felt light.  Next set 225×6, felt great!  No fatigue at all so far.  Next set, 315×2…still felt great.  A few blogs ago I said I was going to ease back into heavy lifting as I tried to match my personal best 405 lifted in September…well so much for that plan as I put on two more 45 plates and decided to go for broke and try to match 405.  I felt confident and strong, and when those two things come together for me I have no choice but to push myself….and I did the lift! Had to push hard to get past the sticking point to get myself standing straight, but I did it and it felt fantastic!  For the second time since I started deadlifting I saw myself in the mirror holding that barbell with 8 plates and the feeling was awesome (ego boost, ego boost)!  I also did it with chalk only, no straps…my grip is getting stronger too.  I stopped deadlifting there, wanting to end on a high note.  I finished my workout with a few sets of abs, going to failure on the last set and really getting a great burn.

I started deadlifting with only the bar and thirteen months later I’m pulling 405 off the floor.  I feel really great about that accomplishment!  But what are my limits?  How much heavier can I go?  I guess there’s only one way to find out…set a new goal and keep working towards it!  So my deadlifting goal is to lift 500 pounds by the end of 2009!  Maybe it’s realistic, maybe not, either way I come out a winner because I will get stronger, bigger, healthier and have fun no matter what!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.