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The problem is the bumpers are downstairs and the regular plates are upstairs. Other lifters have brought regular plates down to the bumper room, and been told not to do it anymore.
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I agree with all of that. Gold’s branding would indicate to me that what I was doing was fine. When I joined the gym, I specifically asked the manager at the time if there was any issue with deadlifting, chalk, etc. He laughed and said no issue at all.
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A lot of uneducated trainers, and especially managers, of gyms, believe that bars are damaged by dropping deadlifts. They tend to believe this because in commercial gyms, bars are constantly going to shit. What they don’t understand is that the damage is done by people dropping unloaded bars, or one side of an unloaded bar. As for the flooring, I would hope that the gym floor is set up to support heavy weights being dropped… because it’s a gym. I can sort of understand why a manager might think dropping weights upstairs could be an issue. But at an LA fitness I used to lift at, I was warming up with 315, not dropping the weights, and was told that the floor was going to be damaged by what I was doing. This was downstairs. Now that was some dumb shit. Essentially the same thing happened at another gym I used to lift at. Both situations were also new managers. And all 3 times I’ve been told in a commercial gym not to deadlift, it’s been by someone who clearly doesn’t lift.
tried out a couple new gyms the last 2 days.
Texas Gym on Tuesday:
Deadlifts - missed 565 at the knee again. Not gonna attempt this weight again for a few weeks… tried it twice.
OHP - seated. 185 for 5ish sets of 4, last set was 3.
pullups
This gym was something else… You can pay 5 bucks if you’re not a member, OR buy something at the front counter. So if you buy like a Gatorade or something you can workout for free. The gym itself was full of some of the oldest plates/bars ever, shit is falling apart, nobody racks weights, just plates all over the floor. It seemed to be very prison-yard-like. I’ll probably do all my heavy deadlifting there.
YouFit on Wednesday:
The absolute polar opposite of Texas Gym. Green and Purple machines EVERYWHERE. Looks like a planet fitness, but they do have plenty of freeweights, 2 squat racks, and several benches. Super clean. The gym opened less than a week ago, so everything even smells new. The squat racks were great, well designed, and the bars have good knurling in the middle, so no slipping on the back.
I started with a ‘squat press’ machine. Kinda like a leg press, except the movement was more like a hinge than a slide of the platform. I loaded it up with like 14 plates, the most it could hold, and did sets of 10 , slow descent, fast push.
Moved to squats. The squat press ended up being a great primer. I did 5x5 @ 365, with my lower back feeling fried from Tuesday. I even kept great speed on the squats.
Bench press. worked up to 325 for a single. Had to call it a day after that, ran out of time.
couple sessions to log
Last 2 sessions at YouFit.
Friday I did a mostly bodybuilder shoulder/arm/back session
OHP for sets of 10. I think I used 135. Should have logged it sooner, memory is fuzzy.
T Bar plate loaded rows. Haven’t had a gym recently that had one of these contraptions.
rear delt flyes
dips
db bicep/tricep superset
band tricep/bicep superset
Saturday - heavy squat
worked up to 455 single. Felt heavy as shit, but not a grinder. First time in over a year doing a heavy rep in front of a mirror.
Bench - worked up to 245x5, and decided I didn’t like how I felt, so I abandoned bench and did a machine bench instead for several sets. Supersetted these with leg raises, which I also haven’t done in forever. I think I’m going to start incorporating some ab work, as I have done absolutely none in the last year or so.
I just took a look at my goals I set out last September. It looks like I’ve come up short so far on all of them, although my squat is probably within 10-15 lbs. Deadlift is still about 40-50 lbs off, and bench press isn’t close, although my pec issue from a few months ago is relevant there. I’m also well under the bodyweight goal. But I guess that’s not actually a bad thing. I thought I would have to push my weight up to 200 to meet those goals, but it’s looking like I might not have to.
deadlift: worked up to a 545 single.
did pull ups. curls. lateral raises.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I just took a look at my goals I set out last September. It looks like I’ve come up short so far on all of them, although my squat is probably within 10-15 lbs. Deadlift is still about 40-50 lbs off, and bench press isn’t close, although my pec issue from a few months ago is relevant there. I’m also well under the bodyweight goal. But I guess that’s not actually a bad thing. I thought I would have to push my weight up to 200 to meet those goals, but it’s looking like I might not have to.[/quote]
Are you planning to make any changes for your deadlift and bench work?
[quote]lift206 wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I just took a look at my goals I set out last September. It looks like I’ve come up short so far on all of them, although my squat is probably within 10-15 lbs. Deadlift is still about 40-50 lbs off, and bench press isn’t close, although my pec issue from a few months ago is relevant there. I’m also well under the bodyweight goal. But I guess that’s not actually a bad thing. I thought I would have to push my weight up to 200 to meet those goals, but it’s looking like I might not have to.[/quote]
Are you planning to make any changes for your deadlift and bench work?[/quote]
I’m gonna keep doing what I’ve been doing for my bench. I have been progressing well on that over the last couple months.
Deadlift I should probably change. And I am. Squatting and benching have worked well at 2 days a week, but deadlift just doesn’t for me. So I’m back to once a week. Starting next week, I’m not gonna pull heavier than right about 500 for about a month, and I’m going to work on getting more reps in that range. Then I’ll re test in 4-5 weeks to see how that affects my max.
Squatted 495 last night. JK APRIL FOOLS I TOTALLY MISSED IT!!!
So I hadn’t squatted in over a week. Got through warm ups and did a set of 3 paused squats at 365. Then paused 405 for a couple seconds. Definitely a paused squat PR. 455 flew up. So I went ahead and tried 495. The rack I was using isn’t great for my height, and the hooks are kind of difficult to manage. It took me forever to unrack the weight, and then walk it out. I kept catching on the rack. Probably had the weight on my back for 20 seconds before I attempted the lift. Felt solid going down, but just couldn’t get it done. I might have gotten it had I been able to unrack it smoothly.
After that I hit some bench sets at 225, pullups, and cable arm stuff.
I forgot to log a thing that I want to make a note of from 4/2
I missed a 535 deadlift. It was the day after the squat session I logged on 4/1. I’ve let my form slip on deadlift substantially, and it’s biting me now. After I missed that rep, I spent the next hour working on technique. Haven’t deadlifted since then. I was letting the bar float away from me, I wasn’t keeping my back tight. just doing everything wrong. Excited for my next deadlift session.
A thought bouncing around in my head:
I believe you mentioned elsewhere that it’s a goal of yours to total Elite one day (and that was the reason you had decided to beef up your supplement regimen). I am curious about a few things:
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have you done a full meet in the past year or two? I know about what your best gym lifts are from periodically checking your log, but meets have eluded me.
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would you intend to move up further in weight? You’ve got a great physique, but you seem a little tall for your weight class by PL standards. Would you try to get up to a walking-around weight of 215 and then make a cut to 198? Or something like that?
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your training seems brutally straightforward - I love that - but do you expect that you’ll reach a point where more structure and/or complexity is needed? How would you decide when you’ve reached the point where a new stimulus of some kind is needed?
Just curious. Thanks.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
A thought bouncing around in my head:
I believe you mentioned elsewhere that it’s a goal of yours to total Elite one day (and that was the reason you had decided to beef up your supplement regimen). I am curious about a few things:
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have you done a full meet in the past year or two? I know about what your best gym lifts are from periodically checking your log, but meets have eluded me.
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would you intend to move up further in weight? You’ve got a great physique, but you seem a little tall for your weight class by PL standards. Would you try to get up to a walking-around weight of 215 and then make a cut to 198? Or something like that?
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your training seems brutally straightforward - I love that - but do you expect that you’ll reach a point where more structure and/or complexity is needed? How would you decide when you’ve reached the point where a new stimulus of some kind is needed?
Just curious. Thanks.[/quote]
Great questions!
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I have not, but I have a meet June 6th. So 8 or 9 weeks away.
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I agree, I am tall for a 181. I feel like 198 would be ideal for me long-term, because that would leave a ton of room for growth from where I’m at. I’ve been debating what I’m going to do for this meet though. I’m walking around right about 190, give or take maybe a pound. So making 181 right now would be easy, but I don’t want to water cut more than 10 lbs. And I’m planning on really pushing things for the next 8 weeks. So it’s possible I’ll end up as a 198 for this meet. If I can add substantially to my total in the next 2 months, I’m pretty ok with this. And yes, 210ish would probably be a better walk-around weight for me to truly make any sort of noise in PL.
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Good question. And I guess I don’t have a clear way to know the answer to that. There are lifters out there who have reached world record numbers with similarly straight forward programming. Ed Coan used a linear model his whole career. I think at the end of the day that will just always be a judgement call.
That being said, after this meet I fully intend to devote most of the rest of the year to more of a bodybuilding template, or hypertrophy program, whatever you want to call it. I’ll avoid singles for a long while, and see where it gets me.
I deadlifted Monday. 3 sets of 10, at 365, 385, and 405. None to failure. Then 425x3, and 500x1.
Bigger story though: I was lifting with a guy I’ve seen in the gym before. 5 weeks ago he missed a 405 deadlift. This time, he did singles at 365,385, and then hit 405 with good speed. Then he hit 425 for a PR. He was gonna end his workout there, but the other guys in the gym were like wtf no, you killed that. So he proceeded to hit 445, 465, 485, 500, and 505. And he still didn’t have a sticking point at 505!!! It was the craziest thing I think I’ve ever seen. I would guess he had at least 525 in him. Even still, it was a 100 lbs pr, in 5 weeks.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I deadlifted Monday. 3 sets of 10, at 365, 385, and 405. None to failure. Then 425x3, and 500x1.
Bigger story though: I was lifting with a guy I’ve seen in the gym before. 5 weeks ago he missed a 405 deadlift. This time, he did singles at 365,385, and then hit 405 with good speed. Then he hit 425 for a PR. He was gonna end his workout there, but the other guys in the gym were like wtf no, you killed that. So he proceeded to hit 445, 465, 485, 500, and 505. And he still didn’t have a sticking point at 505!!! It was the craziest thing I think I’ve ever seen. I would guess he had at least 525 in him. Even still, it was a 100 lbs pr, in 5 weeks.[/quote]
Did you ask him what he did over those past 5 weeks? Did he just have a bad day 5 weeks ago?
[quote]lift206 wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I deadlifted Monday. 3 sets of 10, at 365, 385, and 405. None to failure. Then 425x3, and 500x1.
Bigger story though: I was lifting with a guy I’ve seen in the gym before. 5 weeks ago he missed a 405 deadlift. This time, he did singles at 365,385, and then hit 405 with good speed. Then he hit 425 for a PR. He was gonna end his workout there, but the other guys in the gym were like wtf no, you killed that. So he proceeded to hit 445, 465, 485, 500, and 505. And he still didn’t have a sticking point at 505!!! It was the craziest thing I think I’ve ever seen. I would guess he had at least 525 in him. Even still, it was a 100 lbs pr, in 5 weeks.[/quote]
Did you ask him what he did over those past 5 weeks? Did he just have a bad day 5 weeks ago?[/quote]
He said he’d been doing rep work in the 300’s, and hadn’t gone above 350 during that time. I feel like maybe he hasn’t been deadlifting for very long. His technique looked fantastic this time, and I’d bet it didn’t before. I would have trouble believing it was 100% pure strength gain. But I don’t think it was just a bad day 5 weeks ago, because that was the first time he’d even attempted 405.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
He said he’d been doing rep work in the 300’s, and hadn’t gone above 350 during that time. I feel like maybe he hasn’t been deadlifting for very long. His technique looked fantastic this time, and I’d bet it didn’t before. I would have trouble believing it was 100% pure strength gain. But I don’t think it was just a bad day 5 weeks ago, because that was the first time he’d even attempted 405.[/quote]
He must have been doing a ton of volume with sub 350 weights. It’s definitely possible if he was capable of pulling 350 for 15-20 reps with good form. Doing that with shitty form would make 405 difficult and doing it with solid form wouldn’t make 500 surprising. I also think it was mostly technical improvement and most of the base strength was already there.
[quote]lift206 wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
He said he’d been doing rep work in the 300’s, and hadn’t gone above 350 during that time. I feel like maybe he hasn’t been deadlifting for very long. His technique looked fantastic this time, and I’d bet it didn’t before. I would have trouble believing it was 100% pure strength gain. But I don’t think it was just a bad day 5 weeks ago, because that was the first time he’d even attempted 405.[/quote]
He must have been doing a ton of volume with sub 350 weights. It’s definitely possible if he was capable of pulling 350 for 15-20 reps with good form. Doing that with shitty form would make 405 difficult and doing it with solid form wouldn’t make 500 surprising. I also think it was mostly technical improvement and most of the base strength was already there.[/quote]
Right.
It was actually impressive enough for me to consider reshaping my deadlift programming substantially. I’ve been hitting way too many heavy reps, and not doing enough technique work. I plan to hit a lot more volume for a few weeks at lower weights and see where that takes me. Maybe I’ll hit 600 that way
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Right.
It was actually impressive enough for me to consider reshaping my deadlift programming substantially. I’ve been hitting way too many heavy reps, and not doing enough technique work. I plan to hit a lot more volume for a few weeks at lower weights and see where that takes me. Maybe I’ll hit 600 that way[/quote]
That’s awesome and should be interesting to follow. There are guys with big deadlifts who do a ton of volume for deadlift but seem to recover fine because they have great technique and solid core strength.
I squatted last night.
315x5
365x3
405x5
315x8
315x8
315x10
I really wanted to get another set at 315, but the lower back pump was tremendous. Just couldn’t push through it. Did 5 sets of leg curls instead, each over 10 reps. I was happy with these numbers though.
did 100 pullups the other day. abs were sore the next day. Also bench pressed 275 for 2 sets of 5 and 1 set of 3, and several sets at 225.
This weekend I worked up to a 525 deadlift.
Bench PR last night.
Worked up to 345x1 paused, best rep I’ve ever gotten at this weight, AND I did it with no spotter or lift off. I probably have 365 in me at this point.
Dropped to 225 and did a few sets of 5, then did curls/extensions supersetted, then pullups, then dips.