Nonsense! You got this.
Stay at it. The sled is a great tool. Maybe mix things up and try to find new ways to challenge yourself in your workouts. We all go through periods where things don’t work.
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Bench pause at bottom
65 x 10
95 x 8
115 x 5
115 x 5
115 x 5
115 x 5 felt a little better than expected
Pec Dec pause at extension
110 x 7
went so well, decided to drop set the next
110 x 5
90 x 5
70 x 5
pecs burn
machine tri extend
40 - so easy I was shocked. So I drop set the next
50 x 8
40 x 7
30 x 8
Crunch pause at top
x 18
x 15
x 15
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Deadlift
115 lbs x 8
135 x 8
165 x 6
195 x 5 not too hard
195 x 5 god this was a killer
185 x 5 ow this was tearing me in half
Plate curls
60 x 6
60 x 5
55 x 6
55 x 5
Leg curl
140 x 16
160 x 10
160 x 9
160 x 9 this really wore me out
So. Ran across some videos I took of me deadlifting 10 years ago. Did 185 lbs, 195 lbs, same reps, really hard. In ten years made zero progress. Trained by Matt Wenning, tightened up diet, sleep 9 or 10 hours a night. Nothing.
Over 45 years busting my butt in the gym and I have to face it. The human body does not respond to exercise. There is no adaption. Not sure what to do from now on, but can’t expect any growth. Will just settle for maintaining what I got. Assuming I don’t just lose it all.
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How old are you? Deadlifts are great exercises regardless of if you are doing them for strength or not. Like I said before, maybe change things up and look for ways to challenge yourself. As I have gotten older, I know for a fact, I am not what I was 10, 15 or 20 years ago. To me that’s the real challenge. Trying to keep what I have the longest I can.
@Crippler56 based on opening post above, calculates to circa 66 years young.
@cavalier keep on lifting, change up the rep scheme. lower volume, or more rest days. Or more lifting in the 60-80% range. Keep at it!
Age makes no difference. I started with weights in my late teens and took years to start to see the tiniest difference. Ten years to get my bench up to 95 pounds.
From now on, I only work on maintenaince. That’s all my body will do anyway. All these decades I’ve pushed for growth and it doesn’t come. I finally just had to accept it.
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Will take the next week off from the gym. Trying to figure out my next step. First thing, throw away the stupid notebook. Nobody else keeps a log of what they do. They just walk in, toss the weights around. It’s just neurotic to keep grinding through the numbers as if they meant anything. I look back to the earliest books I kept and the lifts are stuck at the same numbers.
Still not sure how I’ll go from here. Was thinking of just dropping squats and deadlifts altogether. They’re just crap exercises, they wear you out, leave you exhausted, even make injuries, and do absolutely nothing for strength gains. Lift for 20 years, 30, doesn’t matter, squat never gets past 150 pounds and deads never get out of the 200’s. But then I thought how old people get bone problems, so I suppose some occasional stimulation might keep my bones normal.
Took a look at my body and it’s soft and sagging at 180 pounds. This after two years of strict diet of meat, steamed veggies, and very little carbs. I’ve never seen my abs. Thought about dieting really hard, but that would just shrivel me up to where I started 50 years ago as a weak toothpick and don’t want to go back.
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You didn’t come this far, to just come this far. Stay at it!
Are you doing TRT at all?
If I were in your situation (and I may be in the not-far-flung-future) it would be something I’d be considering.
Been taking DHEA for couple years, it’s a test booster.
Been doing some walking, to corner store, down street, stuff. That’s my exercise currently.
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Chicken, I haven’t come “this far”. I just dug out my training logs from 30 years ago. For example, I was deadlifting for reps 95, 110, 130 pounds. Today I deadlift for reps 115, 155, 185 and barely 195. That’s all I can make my body do in thirty years.
Looks like progress to me. Are you going to be the next worlds strongest man? Probably not, but can you keep making progress? Yes!
Just think of what it would be like if you hadn’t lifted.
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Made it to the gym.
Standing calf machine which turned into poor man hack squats
Bench machine
Hanging from bar
So agonizing. It was real torture.
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Focus on the positives and your “have’s”. Tough to gauge reading a blog only, but any kind of weight training and lifting is going to hold you in good stead in years to come. If we’re all lifting when we’re 80+ then it’s a great thing. Numbers on the plates mean nothing. Mobility and being able to sit/sand and wipe our own ass, after using the toilet is far more of a priority surely…
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So did some deadlifts. And some DB incline bench.
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Did some squats. Tried 155 but didn’t get all the way down. Did some hanging.
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