Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Turning it Around

Sooo....deadlifts. I *heart* them. I'm so excited about the upcoming meet, I can't even tell you. I visualize an amazing pull over and over. I can tell you in my visualization it's not easy, it's a long fight...but I pull through it and I get that bar up and lock it out and the feeling is amazing. Over and over. I visualize it with every lift I train, during cardio, and sometimes even at random moments throughout the day. The meet is 4 weeks from Saturday - that's crazy soon!

Yesterday RC and I trained deads - back and hamstrings. I followed the plan, 5-3-1 plus heavy singles. Five at 220, three at 250, then singles at 280, 305 and 325.

280 was easy


(yeah I wore the socks!)


So was 305...



A long rest, and I was ready for 325 - a crazy gym PR and equivalent to my meet PR...a big step along the way to the big pull at the upcoming meet...I set up, I visualized it over and over. I took hold of the bar...

And I missed it. I didn't just miss it, it kinda owned me. It didn't budge. Glue.

Hah...it sucked. And that's a total understatement. I'm glad RC was there, because he didn't sugarcoat it...he just said, "it sucks to miss a lift, doesn't it?" Yeah it does. And that was that, and it was time to move on to the rest of the session.

Which I did, I caught my breath, I got my shit together, and I still had a good session. I was a little down, and definitely tired (missed deadlifts, particularly the kind that are glued to the floor, are kinda deceptive in that even though the weight doesn't MOVE...you're still exerting a max force on it!), but I just needed to move on and finish up strong.

On the (very, very short) drive back to my house, I had a moment. I had a little conversation with myself:

"I gotta rethink this, maybe I should just try to be back right where I was in January at the upcoming meet, aim to pull 325 in August and be good with that."

But...almost as soon as that thought completed, I had another that went...

"Uhh...fuck that yo! Give it a minute...it *just* happened like 10 minutes ago and you're tired and hungry and you've got a month to get your shit together. You never train the week leading up into a meet, nevermind the day before and nevermind a "warm-up" with 5 at 220 and 3 at 250. It's SUPPOSED to be fucking hard today. You're in the middle of a skirmish preparing for the big battle..now is not the time to run away."

So there it is. I turned it around, not stopping. Tired, depleted...it was not (and still isn't) the time to make any decisions like that. I have a plan, I'm sticking to it!

Tomorrow: Bench!

2 comments:

  1. Yay for putting the brakes on that negativity. Plenty of time to repossess and own it!

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  2. Funny coincidence you would attempt 325 -- After last having deadlifted 6-30, I took about a month off to take care of personal things (organizing my lifting videos, writing letters to the editor, and updating my webpages, cleaning the room, rest, etc.).

    So, yesterday on 7-27, I attepted a PR of 325, but off the box since I'm tall for my weight class and pull practically from a deficit.

    I made the warmups at 135x5, 225x4, and 275x3, but the 325 only went up about halfway. (My friends speculate that a month off let my strength go down too much.)

    Assuming all things being equal in the reach (and that's just an estimate), the shorter person has an easier time pulling deadlifts.

    I wonder, if you don't mind, how tall are you?

    Also, as a corrolary, a shorter reach helps in the bench press -- my reach is about 68-69 inches with arms outstretched, and I am almost 5'10" in height, and for that reason, I don't feel guilty using the 4" blocks to deadlift sometimes: My pull of 320 a few months back at almost 5'10" is kind of like a 5'6" person pulling when standing on a 4" deficit board.

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