Let's chase new totals for the end of 2020!

[MyEgoProblem]

That's a very productive year EC. I would vote for #3 as well, just because it seems like you need to do something different right now to get you mentally engaged after a stretch where your progress hasn't quite been where you wanted it. PR hunting can wear on a person, and this would be a good change up.

What do you guys mean by 'ES'? Is it and acronym, or someone's initials?


Did my Squat PR attempt today, and it turned out better than I hoped and expected. I kind of dropped the ball on the warmup because I was psyching myself out. Did a full and pretty typical warmup up to 185 for a double. But then I was suddenly worried about what a weight higher than 225 would feel like on my back since I've never lifted it before. I changed over to a 20 inch box squat and worked my way up to 255 or 265. Then I wanted to do some standard squats with a belt on to get comfortable with it, but my energy was crashing because I drug the warmup out too long. I took like a 30 minute break, just sitting and relaxing. Took a couple of swigs of soda to get my blood pumping again, and then worked my way up from 135 with the belt on.

225 pounds went up fast. 235 pounds went up even faster. 245 was a little slow. Finally ended up at 255. May have had another 10 pounds in me, but after struggling to unrack the 255, I ended it there quite happily. This was a 45 pound increase of my previous all time squat PR, and a 50 pound increase from my starting point for this friendly competition.



There have been times where I seriously questioned whether I'd ever squat 225 because of how much I've struggled with the lift. At one point a couple of years ago I was nearly convinced that I'd have to stop squatting because of knee pain every time I did it. I'm so happy that I stuck with it, and am now making progress. It feels good to not hate squatting, lol. Hoping I can get close to 300 pounds next year.


I'll do my final PR attempt of the year tomorrow with Bench Press, and then put together a wrap up post with my starting and ending numbers.

Rep was easy! Gj. Way more in you...

The unrack... The issue isn't hook height. It's that you are trying to lift it out with your back with weight over your toes.

Shuffle feet forward, get under the bar (midfoot) instead of infront of it..

.. and use ur LEGS to pop it off the hooks! Like a mini squat lockout. Straight up.

[ECGordyn]

Did my Squat PR attempt today, and it turned out better than I hoped and expected. I kind of dropped the ball on the warmup because I was psyching myself out. Did a full and pretty typical warmup up to 185 for a double. But then I was suddenly worried about what a weight higher than 225 would feel like on my back since I've never lifted it before. I changed over to a 20 inch box squat and worked my way up to 255 or 265. Then I wanted to do some standard squats with a belt on to get comfortable with it, but my energy was crashing because I drug the warmup out too long. I took like a 30 minute break, just sitting and relaxing. Took a couple of swigs of soda to get my blood pumping again, and then worked my way up from 135 with the belt on.

225 pounds went up fast. 235 pounds went up even faster. 245 was a little slow. Finally ended up at 255. May have had another 10 pounds in me, but after struggling to unrack the 255, I ended it there quite happily. This was a 45 pound increase of my previous all time squat PR, and a 50 pound increase from my starting point for this friendly competition.



There have been times where I seriously questioned whether I'd ever squat 225 because of how much I've struggled with the lift. At one point a couple of years ago I was nearly convinced that I'd have to stop squatting because of knee pain every time I did it. I'm so happy that I stuck with it, and am now making progress. It feels good to not hate squatting, lol. Hoping I can get close to 300 pounds next year.

That was a very quick 1rm. You probably had 275. You could break 315 / 3 plates within 6 months with the right programming.

[CW47]

Rep was easy! Gj. Way more in you...

The unrack... The issue isn't hook height. It's that you are trying to lift it out with your back with weight over your toes.

Shuffle feet forward, get under the bar (midfoot) instead of infront of it..

.. and use ur LEGS to pop it off the hooks! Like a mini squat lockout. Straight up.

Yeah, I've definitely been lifting it out with my back. I will work on doing it the correct way. Thank you!

That was a very quick 1rm. You probably had 275. You could break 315 / 3 plates within 6 months with the right programming.

May have had 275... Oh well. I'll have another PR attempt in 6 weeks, so I'm not too concerned about it. You might be right about the 315. My programming is probably not optimal, but I still may be able to get close to that. I'm also willing to try out some other programs if my progress stalls out at some point, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can about what works/doesn't work for me by programming in a lot of variation right now and seeing what the results are. It probably means I'm sacrificing some progress in the short term, but so be it.


Max Bench: Bench Press
180 x FAIL
No PR today. I got the bar off my chest pretty good, but then it just stopped dead about 4 inches up, and wouldn't budge. My tender left elbow probably contributed to this (can't remove the baby carries out of my programming, so I'll just have to work around this, lol). I struggled even to unrack a couple of the warmup sets because of the left elbow. But honestly, I don't think this is the reason I didn't complete the lift. It was most likely because I used supplemental & accessory exercises that weren't super effective for me, and I may have just fatigued myself with too much heavy, low rep work over the last couple of weeks. I'll take a closer look at the programming and learn from it.

I'll do a final recap in a separate post.

[CW47]

Bodyweight
Starting: 168 pounds
Ending: 174 pounds
Difference: +6 pounds

Squat
Starting: 210 pounds
Ending: 255 pounds
Difference: +45 pounds

Bench Press
Starting: 160 pounds
Ending: 175 pounds
Difference: +15 pounds

Sumo Deadlift
Starting: 305 pounds
Ending: 335 pounds
Difference: +30 pounds

Total
Starting: 675
Ending: 765
Difference: +90 pounds


Age Adjusted Wilks Score
Starting: 227.7
Ending: 255.2
Difference: +27.5 points

Age Adjusted IPF GL Points
Starting: 44.27
Ending: 52.6
Difference: +8.40 points


This is a far better result than I expected. I got lucky in that this friendly competition coincided with me finally figuring things out after almost 4 years of lifting. I made a lot of gains that people usually make when they first start out (I never experienced those early gains). But also, you all have been super helpful and motivational, so thank you everyone!

[jademonkey]

Is no one doing strict curl anymore?

---

I took a couple days off, then a 3 day road trip to some hot springs in the partially complete campervan project, and an extra day off to unwind and maybe recover from ingesting the wrong things over Christmas. 6 days off creatine probably didn't help my PRs today, nor did the fact that my back is still sore from all that driving. Also got some poor sleep last night, but at least the muscles had a chance to recover. I figured if today didn't go well I'd have one last shot in the next few days.

Weighed in at 185.6 this morning.

All the indoor squat racks were full so I took a bit more time to warm up in the cold. 355 was a bit hard, but I guess 97% is supposed to be hard. Added 20 lbs and psyched myself up. Quite the grind but got it.


Haven't done strict curl in a while so made sure to get an attempt in today and have another try in 2 or 3 days.
115 felt so easy I went straight for 135 and failed lol. Dropped down to 125 and got it. PR, but I feel I could get 130 or maybe even 135 after today's little reminder on how to do it.


Bench press and deadlift in the coming days. It'll be tough to match my pre-COVID PRs which are 20 lbs more than anything I've worked with recently.

[jademonkey]

Bench press today. Weighed 185.4
Opened with 265, easy:


Got 285:


Failed 295:


I wonder why I still can't bench what I did in March, yet my squat is up 40 lbs. I've been back in the gym since September.
295 from March:


Looks like I had a better position in March. I feel like maybe the bench at my current gym is a bit too short to get a good leg position without raising my butt off the bench.

[WolfRose7]

Great squat grind
Strong strict curl

Bench. Hard to say why its not improved but I do see a lot of movement on the chest, I'd work on upper back tightness and variations like 2ct t shirt pause, chest level pin etc.

[jademonkey]

Great squat grind
Strong strict curl

Bench. Hard to say why its not improved but I do see a lot of movement on the chest, I'd work on upper back tightness and variations like 2ct t shirt pause, chest level pin etc.

Pin might be a fun one to add. Tried it a while back but didn't stick with it for long, too much fun adding weight to touch and go bench.

Today was deadlift day. Considered putting it off till tomorrow but I felt pretty good so went to the gym this afternoon. Warm ups felt easier than usual, and 455 felt so light I went straight for the PR without wasting energy.



Even that was cleaner than my previous PR so I rested 10 minutes and went for 525. Got stuck in the usual spot, shooting up with the legs and then unable to get my hips in.

[jademonkey]

Alrighty, so my December totals, assuming white lights:
Weight - 185.6
Squat - 375
Bench - 285
Deadlift - 505
Strict Curl - 125

SBD total: 1165
Including curl: 1290

From online wilks calculator:
SBD: 349.82
With curl: 387.36

IPF GL:
SBD: 72.63
With curl: 80.42

[WolfRose7]

Alrighty, so my December totals, assuming white lights:
Weight - 185.6
Squat - 375
Bench - 285
Deadlift - 505
Strict Curl - 125

SBD total: 1165
Including curl: 1290

From online wilks calculator:
SBD: 349.82
With curl: 387.36

IPF GL:
SBD: 72.63
With curl: 80.42

Great man,
I probably wouldn't pass the bench in an actual comp (movement on chest) , but for this group I think it's fine.

My numbers remain whatever the best I posted in this group.

120 @8, 140@8, 170@10 I think.
Current is around 120@10, 140-145@10, 160-170@10 so not much point testing.

[MyEgoProblem]

The 285 would get a press command

[EliKoehn]

@JadeMonkey, excellent deadlift. Do you find that you pull more with sumo?

My final attempt at 495 was a fail, got it off the floor and then got stuck mid-shin, so even worse than the attempt that I uploaded a couple of months ago. Regardless, my deadlift has improved quite a bit this year, which is the first where I even attempted more than 405, so I am still relatively pleased, adding 70 pounds above the entry level "strong" lift in one year. I began regularly deadlifting in January 2017 and got to four plates in just about one year evenly, then I took a long break from it altogether, doing more hypertrophy sets with 315 when I returned. I don't think I pulled 405 again until the summer of 2019, which was still safely my max as I would get it but still almost fail.

This year, I've deadlifted almost every week (omitting the 2 months where my gym was closed), and it's gotten slowly and steadily easier. Some major jumps, too: after consistently deadlifting at the same weight, getting 415 was super easy, then I got 445 in one try, and then 475 in one attempt, after that. Anything beyond that I've failed attempting, and I'm going to have to be more careful and strategic in my approach.

That said, the deadlift, in my opinion, is *the* ultimate lift and the best single measure of strength. For a number of reasons, I have the most enthusiasm for it. I'm excited to challenge my max next year. Lifting-wise, 2020 has been a success for me and I have made strength progress across the board. Most satisfying to me is finally hitting 315 on the bench. I am not a natural bencher and have responded far more slowly than on my pulls, so I benched obsessively for small, gradual gains. So, I am mostly content with that press for the time being and want to devote most of my training towards the deadlift for 2021.

So, my year end numbers are:
Bench: 315 x 1, 295 x 2, 285 x 3, 275 x 5, 265 x 6, 245 x 8, 225 x 15
Squat: 335 x 1, 275 x 5, 225 x 8
Deadlift: 475 x 1, 405 x 4, 370 x 5, 365 x 6, 315 x 8, 275 x 10

The other day I barbell curled 135 for 6 reps. The last rep I would call mostly cheated, but I was feeling strong and wanted to go to failure. I'm not going to claim this for our competition since it was spontaneous and I did not film it (I have uploaded it for 3 easy reps, however). Form felt good up until the last rep, but since this is a competition of sorts, I won't claim that officially for those reasons.

Plenty of other accessory work (notably OHP and and some leg exercises I hadn't done in a long time) I gained more routine and familiarity with, but as assistances to the Big 3, it's not worth detailing. I did OHP 145 for 6, but I'm not even sure how good that is?

Happy New Year to everyone on the thread, great work and it's been enjoyable. If someone's going to start another one for next year, please let me know.

[jademonkey]

@EliKoehn
Yeah I pull more sumo. The first time I tried sumo I pulled the same as my max conventional, and never done much conventional since then except for rack pulls and the occasional set just for the hell of it. Sumo just feels so much more natural, like the way I would lift stuff in day-to-day life. And I think I have a short leg/torso ratio which I think makes sumo easier than conventional.

[CW47]

Alrighty, so my December totals, assuming white lights:
Weight - 185.6
Squat - 375
Bench - 285
Deadlift - 505
Strict Curl - 125

So, my year end numbers are:
Bench: 315 x 1, 295 x 2, 285 x 3, 275 x 5, 265 x 6, 245 x 8, 225 x 15
Squat: 335 x 1, 275 x 5, 225 x 8
Deadlift: 475 x 1, 405 x 4, 370 x 5, 365 x 6, 315 x 8, 275 x 10

Great work gentlemen!