So It was a long 13 hour day, but at the end I won the Ohio State Powerlifting Championship in my division. It was probably the longest day of my life but well worth it. I am roughly 25 pounds shy of a state record in the deadlift. I will be doing everything i can over the next month to train so that I may capture the record at the Kentucky Championships on May 11. Here is to a great month of training
Archive for the ‘Lifting’ Category
I recently competed in and won the NASA Indiana State Powerlifting Championship. This being my first meet back since tearing my chest, I was completely nervous. Those nerves quickly went away as I made my first squat lift with ease. This was very settling for me since I have only been squatting heave and deep for a short period of time. I made all 3 squat lifts. My bench which used to be my bread and butter turned out to be my worst lift of the day. I made my opening lift, but that was as heavy as i would go. I was not training for the pause at the bottom and due to the injury to my chest I found it very difficuour lt to get a strong push. My new federation also requires your feet to be flat which i am not used to and have never trained that way. I get much more leverage and a greater arch on my toes. Needless to say I have been training feet flat over the last month. Deadlift went just as I was hoping. Made my first two lifts so I decided to push the third. I was unable to pull it but i do feel that I will get it next time. That being said, I am leaving tomorrow for the Ohio State Championships and have my hopes high that I will increase weight on each exercise.
just returned from the gym. I will start with some bad news. I was unable to squat today due to the pain that is still in my knee. I could not even get through my first warm up set. I did however have a pretty good day in dead lift. I have a little bit of pain when performing these, but very minimal when I focus on my form. I started out really after my actual workout on deads, I decided to make an attempt at just under triple my body weight. I weighed in today at 161 and was trying topull 475. I unfortunately was unable to complete the lift. I do think that I would have been able to pull it except for two things. One, I just completed a rigorous workout. Two, I did not get much sleep last night. I am confident that i will be pulling this no problem come January. I did however complete something that i have been wanting to get for a long time. I have been repping out at 315 after finishing dead lift lately. I have only been able to get 15 before getting really tired. Today, I reached my goal of 20. I actually think i could have pulled one or two more, but by the time that i got to 20 I was completely out of breath. All 20 were done with out wraps or a belt. NLA has helped me to come a long way. I wish I could continue with these types of gains.
My chest workout today was insane. I was able to make it through my Bench workout alone in the gym. Again, unable to push myself as far as I would like.. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I finished my last set another guy came walking into the gym. It was actually good timing. I decided to continue on with Bench adding 3 more slow rep lifts in with him as my spotter. I worked my way up to 300 with relative ease and decided to go for 315. It is rare for me to have a spotter so I wanted to make sure that I took advantage of the situation. I have not tried 315 since I tore my chest so I was a little aprehensive. I did not think that I was going to push it, especially after making it though an actual workout, but I had to try it. Ken, my spotter told me that he helped me a little with it, but to be honest I am pretty sure that i would have had it on my own. It felt good on the way down, I made sure that I went slower than I would normally. On the push up it felt smooth, I did notice a hitch at about 4″ above me chest which is when i could tell he began to help. He came in to help which i appreciate, but I am pretty sure he came in too soon. I am sure that i would have pressed it myself. The initial press off the chest went rather easy which is usually when i lose it. I really miss having a person that I lift with on a regular basis. They know your lifting style. They know when they need to step in and when to make sure you push through it. All in all, I am excited about the lift today and of so looking forward to maxxing out in a few weeks. NLA has been a huge help at getting me back to where I am
Alright here’s the scoop. I dropped all 6 T-Blasts, 3 Swoll-N, and 2 scoops of Supp-D this morning right before leaving for the gym. Holy Crap. The pump that I received was absolutely rediculous, and my veins looked like a freaking 3D road map. From the moment I got there I was going non stop. I wanted a really good workout today and was planning on spending a good amount of time at the gym, but I did not need to. I made it through Back, Legs and Biceps in about an hour and fifteen minutes. I even squatted today for the first time in a few weeks due to injury. I did not push a lot of weight but i concentrated on form and worked the negative slow. I am going to slowly work my weight back up using this slow technique. The squat felt really good and I know that if I can keep my form tight like it was today that I can push more weight. I do have a question however. I am starting to feel that I am dragging on the dead. I need to change up my routine a little. What set,reps are you doing that will help me push through the plateau and help me to pull more weight. I am getting closer to maxxing out and want to make sure that I am getting a benefit out of every set and every rep. I have even talked to my wife today about my diet. I am still leaning out. I am rock solid but only sitting at 163(160 on my home scale). I used to compete at 165 and I am trying to decide if I want to stay at this weight class or perhaps start bulking up to throw at 181.
I hate chest day on a Friday. I love being alone in the gym unless it is chest day. Could not push myself as much as I planned as there was no one there to spot me. I worked my way up to slow reps of 285 but did not want to risk going any beyond that. I did work in my touch and hold with some light form work and did all this with less rest than usual. Got a really good workout in a short period of time. My muscles were worked hard and in a different manner than normal. It’s a good thing I have Recover-D to help with my recovery. It is going to help keep me from being too sore tomorrow.
Question. So to my old work schedule I was working out chest, tri, shoulders one day. And legs, back, bis a another day. Working out each set twice a week. Have been doing This for years. I now have a job with what could be a set schedule where as I could start to work out 4 days a week in a manner that would be each body part worked only once a week. Why are your thoughts.
It has been a couple of years since I have had such effective and quality workouts. I have been getting stronger every day, but the last two weeks in the gym have been absolutely outstanding. I have been having some knee pain for the last week so I was not planning on going heavy on dead lifts and was not going to squat at all today. Although I did not squat, my dead lift was crazy. I had a couple of tight and slightly tender warm up sessions. The funny thing is that I did not have any pain or tension in my knee from 405 on. I lifted up to 455 today with relative ease. I believe I could have pulled 475 maybe 480 today. I am getting so close to tripling my body weight. I know that I am going to reach my goal of doing so by the end of the year. With the help of NLA and the Ultimate stack, I feel that I might just pull more than my goal. My plan is to not max out on the dead lift until 2013. I am going to concentrate on some serious heavy lifting to help build the strength I need focusing on my explosiveness from the floor. As I am sure with most people, my trouble is the first couple of inches. Once I am able to get the weights off the floor by 2″ I know that the weight is mine. I did work my weight back down today finishing up with 15 reps at 315, and I could have gotten atleast 3 more with a stretch at 20. I would not have even considered pulling 3 times my body weight without the push the Ultimate stack gives me. I have been taking around 1 and 3/4 scoops prior to heading to the gym. I am going to begin taking 2 scoops to see what kind of lift that little bit more can give me. I used to hate dead lifts, now I look forward to the next session the moment I leave the current one. Any suggestions for me on workouts or routines to help me reach my goal, drop me a note
Received some great news yesterday, unfortunately I can not talk about it as of yet. I will, however post the details as soon as I possibly can. I took the last two days to get in as much of a good workout as I could in a short period of time. Although not the best workout either day, with the time that I had it turned out to be decent. I am finding myself getting a mental block when it comes to pulling heavy weight on the deadlift. I seem to be doubting myself right before I drop to pull. I know that I am able to pull the weight, but for some reason as soon as I get in front of the weight I begin to doubt myself. I need to work on my mental focus. Anyone have any ideas for me.
I am on vacation starting today and so I decided to get to the gym early this morning(8:30) so that I could get off to a good start. Boy, was I wrong. Not only was I unable to get motivated for the big pulls, but I had nothing in the tank whatsoever. The 515 I pulled last week dropped to 405. I am trying not to let this get me down, or to effect any of my vacation, but you dedicated lifters out there know that a bad workout has a tendency to bring you down. I left the gym on a high last week, looking forward to today. I was even planning my workout on the way to the gym, thinking of ways to increase my pulls. Got there, had a good warm-up and that was it. I just did not have it today. This is the second time in the past couple months that I have tried to get my deads in early to start my day and had a terrible workout. I am no longer going to get up early to make it to the gym. For some reason, my legs and back need plenty of time to be up and walking around warming up. I would love to be able to get the gym out of the way early, I just do not see it happening any time soon. Is this just me, or are there others out there that can not change up their routine at all?
I have been doing rack deadlift for about 2 months now and have seen my actual deadlift max go up a little, but not as fast as I would like. What did I do? I decided to continue the rack deads, but to find a way to slowly lower the height of the rack. After reaching the lowest possible bar on the rack at my gym, I had to think outside the box. So, I started using a weight on either side. This is giving me about a 2-2/12 inch lift. I was able to pull 515 today rather easy from this height. I have to say that I am already trying to think of ways to lower the weight down another inch. This seems to be working for me, and I am really pumped to see how quickly this is going to help me reach the goals that I have set forth for myself. If you have any more ideas for me, drop me a line
Mike's On A Mission 