I squatted 405 yesterday and someone commented in my log that 4 wheels is a huge milestone. I’m certainly proud of the achievement, but I’m still a pretty big boy and don’t see it as anything extraordinary for a man my size. That comment in my log has gotten me thinking about fitness milestones and I’m sure most people here have many of their own.
Deadlifting five plates was probably my biggest milestone to-date. It was the first “respectable” lift I accomplished and the moment when I realized I have the capacity to be strong and achieve things that many people want to do but never come close to achieving.
So let’s hear it, T-Nation.
Anything goes. Strength, performance, weight loss, weight gain, beating cancer, quitting smoking, any kind of milestone relating to health and fitness. I want to hear what you have done and why it was special.
What were your biggest fitness milestones and why?
The 5 plate deadlift was definitely cool to hit, although I personally take more pride in my 405 deadlift for 10 dead-stop reps. It took more out of me mentally, and there was more physical pain (ass cramps at like rep 7).
My most recent milestone was the 3 plate bench press, which I did less than a week ago. I only started working hard on my squat and deadlift a couple years ago, but bench pressing has been a staple for 10 years. So this was a much longer time coming. What was funny about this accomplishment was that as hard as I’ve worked to get to this point for the past decade, by the time I got home from the gym all I could think was, “I can’t wait to try 335.”
All my PR’s have been at a bodyweight under 190… I’ve never been over that. Hanging around 185 these days.
I’ve never competed in a strength sport (powerlifting or strongman), and I’ll be competing in a week and a half in a strongman comp. This is a big deal to me, and may very well trump those aforementioned accomplishments, almost no matter how well I perform in the competition. Certainly a different kind of milestone than number PR’s.
This probably isn’t what you’re asking, but in a way my biggest strength milestones all came from back when I was too ignorant to know how weak I was. I felt really strong and awesome cuz the other kids couldn’t do what I did, but it was only later that I realized people who actually tried to get strong could lift like 3x more. So yeah. My happiest lifting moments were when I deadlifted 405 and benched 225 for the first time.
I’ve never been as happy with a lifting achievement since then. By the time I could bench 3 plates and pull 5 plates I had kind of “awakened” to what actual good lifts were and so after I did them I was happy for a few seconds and then I immediately thought about how shit they were compared to the people at my bodyweight benching 4 plates and pulling over 6.
[quote]csulli wrote:
This probably isn’t what you’re asking, but in a way my biggest strength milestones all came from back when I was too ignorant to know how weak I was. I felt really strong and awesome cuz the other kids couldn’t do what I did, but it was only later that I realized people who actually tried to get strong could lift like 3x more. So yeah. My happiest lifting moments were when I deadlifted 405 and benched 225 for the first time.
I’ve never been as happy with a lifting achievement since then. By the time I could bench 3 plates and pull 5 plates I had kind of “awakened” to what actual good lifts were and so after I did them I was happy for a few seconds and then I immediately thought about how shit they were compared to the people at my bodyweight benching 4 plates and pulling over 6.[/quote]
[quote]csulli wrote:
This probably isn’t what you’re asking, but in a way my biggest strength milestones all came from back when I was too ignorant to know how weak I was. I felt really strong and awesome cuz the other kids couldn’t do what I did, but it was only later that I realized people who actually tried to get strong could lift like 3x more. So yeah. My happiest lifting moments were when I deadlifted 405 and benched 225 for the first time.
I’ve never been as happy with a lifting achievement since then. By the time I could bench 3 plates and pull 5 plates I had kind of “awakened” to what actual good lifts were and so after I did them I was happy for a few seconds and then I immediately thought about how shit they were compared to the people at my bodyweight benching 4 plates and pulling over 6.[/quote]
GREAT POST.
But in all seriousness, you’re right. I remember at my college gym, we loaded ‘all the bumper plates’ onto the bar and I deadlifted it. Nobody else deadlifted there, so I thought I was hot shit. In retrospect, although I’m not sure exactly how much it was, I doubt it was much above 300. I also remember the first time I ‘squatted’ 315. If I had actually tried to perform a full squat with that much weight at the time, I would have been crushed. As it was, quarter squatting that much weight felt like it was going to kill me. But I was truly proud of that lift, and didn’t even feel the need to attempt any weights higher than that for literally years. I think the first time I actually squatted 315 to a reasonable depth was maybe 6 years later.
[quote]csulli wrote:
This probably isn’t what you’re asking…[/quote]
That was actually exactly what I am looking for. Numbers are all relative and will have different significance to people based on size, age, gender, experience, handicaps, life situation, etc. 225 on bench was huge for me in a number of different ways.
A 405 squat was less significant for me than a lot of things I’ve already done. 225 bench is one of them and losing my first 20 lbs is another. A 405 squat is something I just expected myself to be able to do, which I did, so I didn’t get the same rush I did from other achievements. My greatest achievements are all ahead of me, and that is an attitude I am sure many people on this site share.
I’m just curious to hear what makes fellow lifters tick. I find it very interesting to think about how these milestones shape our approach to lifting, fitness and good health in both the short and long-term.
Getting a body weight bench press was a big milestone for me. That was 110 pounds. Nothing compared to someone like 'lil power, but it was really exciting for me at the time.
I haven’t worked on heavy singles in a long time, but getting a pretty set of 5x5 pullups was another milestone.
Now I can do sets of 8 pullups, alternating with sets of 95x8 on my bench press as a superset. I would have never been able to do that before. I did over 50 pullups the other day that way.
EDIT:
^Oops. Not that cool.
To clarify, I can get 3-4 sets of 8 with my BW pullups, then they drop down to sets of 6, then 5. When I started, I’d get 3 and then have to drop down to sets of 1 and 2. And they were THE main lift. No way I’d have alternated them with my bench press.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
What was funny about this accomplishment was that as hard as I’ve worked to get to this point for the past decade, by the time I got home from the gym all I could think was, “I can’t wait to try 335.”[/quote]
That’s the affliction! Another twist on this is that I get a similar drive after a meet whether I do well or poorly. If I do well, I have this affliction; if I do poorly, I can’t wait to get back home and start fixing the reasons I did poorly.
Benching 135 and squatting 225 both in the gym and in competition were kind of a big deal for me. I hit them within about a week of each other. What an awesome week. Maybe I’m weird, but the same lifts in the meet felt like the first time all over again. Re-reading that sounds kind of gross, but whatev. Nothing else so far has been so thrilling but it hasn’t been that long.
I always seem to be aiming for multiples of bodyweight and/or adding a plate.
My goals to hit by this fall are 250/150/300. I will have been lifting about a year by then. I don’t think those weights sound unreasonable, but I’ve got work to do. That’ll be a BW bench, 2xBW deadlift, and 250 squat because I’m a woman and that number makes sense to me against the others. That being said, I don’t think I need another reason.
100kg bench press is still up there as it was my first big milestone I did, 4 plate bench felt good. 300lbs overhead was good and then 300lbs military felt awesome, 300kg deadlift is my favourite milestone up to now. I was smiling all day after that lift!
I had been chasing a 600lb deadlift ever since I started training the movement. The first time I hit it completely blew me away, and I felt like I could finally see past a lot of the bullshit that exists in the lifting world and know what works and what doesn’t. It really altered how I approached everything after that point.
I recently hit 635 for 4 reps touch and go, and that was huge to me just because it was 6 plates and a quarter. My next cycle is going to be 650, which will in turn be huge to me because it’s just that much closer to 700.
Benching, pressing and squatting I never really cared much for. They were cool to do, but deadlifts have my love.
As a guy who started lifting at 120 lbs, hitting 180 lbs on the scale was huge for me. Other than that, I have to agree with what a lot of the other guys have said: 405 deadlift, 225 bench, 135 OHP? all stuff that is far from “respectable” for serious lifters, but close enough to real weight that it feels damn good to hit for the first time.
Slightly different from the other milestones, but I hit a perfect 300 for the first time last summer on the USMC fitness test. 20 pull ups, 100 crunches in 2 minutes, and a 17:58 3 mile. It was at OCS, and even though I lost weight I was still over 180 when I finished. I still felt pretty strong, and my cardio was out of this world.
Also completed a 12 mile ruck march with about 60 lbs between my pack and my rifle. It was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done, physically and mentally. One kid passed out after we finished and went to medical with Rhabdo, to give you an idea of how rough this was.
Strength wise, last fall I hit a 315 squat, to depth, for the first time. In the past, my previous best had been 300 at maybe half depth, so after I checked my ego and started working on depth, it felt good to hit it for real. I’ve always struggled on squats, so hitting three plates on each side and not getting stapled made me feel incredible.
Adding a 45lb plate to each side on a lift is always a big deal for me. I remember the first time I repped 225 on the bench and 315 on the squat in high school put me on cloud nine. I remember getting double meat on my sandwich on Subway after the 315 squat when I got home from practice.
Can’t do this anymore but the time I ran a 4.59 40 yd dash once (might have been timed by an overzealous coach) and it made me feel like my shit didn’t stink for a week because I would tell people I ran a 4.5. Not incredibly fast, but just enough to be told I was quick.
My track coach did a neat thing in high school where he would keep an eye on our personal bests and at our last senior meeting, he all told us our first times from races our freshman year to remind us how well we improved.
Another nice thing is when you hit a milestone and then it eventually becomes part of your warm up when you review your training logs.
[quote]1 Man Island wrote:
I’m a fatty, so… first chinup.[/quote]
This for me as well. I was a really obese kid in high school. Weighed like 110kg (240+lb) at 5’4" and 45 inch waist. I was that kid who always find some excuse to skip PE. Couldn’t even hold on to a chin up bar let alone do a proper chin up. I accepted the fact that I would never ever be able to do a push up let alone a chin up. Then somehow I got a really pretty girl to be my girlfriend (now my wife! =D) and got my shit together and started dieting and lifting some weights so as not to embarrass her.
A few months later at my cousin’s house, I saw a chin up bar on a doorway and decided to try to hold on for as long as I can. Felt easy so I tried to do a chin up for shit and giggles. Somehow I actually managed to do a rep. I know that a chin up isn’t gonna impress anyone but the fact that I actually managed to do something that I thought for several years was going to be impossible was such a big milestone in my life because it was at that exact moment that I know that I will be able to achieve anything that I set my mind to. Sorry for the really cheesy life story lol.
