305/430 – almost back where I was.

• Squat
  • BW x 10
  • bar x 5
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 3
  • 225 x 1
  • 265 x 1
  • 295 x 1
  • 305 x 1
• Deadlift
  • 135 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 315 x 1
  • 365 x 1
  • 405 x 1
  • 430 x 1

I’m about to embark on a full-cycle of Strong-15, so I wanted to establish more appropriate maxes. I think I also wanted to see how close I was to recovering the strength I lost this first half of 2014. At the end of 2013, I did lifetime PR’s of 315 in the squat and 440 in the deadlift. So with that in mind….

A few weeks ago I squatted 295 and felt that was good for an Every Day Max (EDM). Worked the past few weeks based on that. So today, I knew I could hit that, and I figured I should be able to do more given I’ve been working. The goal was a quick work up, hit 295, and see how things go. The 295 was solid, so I went 305. The 305 was good. I actually felt I had 315 in me, but to have done that would have been ego. Still, I figure that would have been a 1RM for sure, not really an EDM. So I just stopped at 305 — that’s good enough for figuring. I wanted to leave something in the tank for deadlifting.

I haven’t deadlifted in I guess 5-6 months. I didn’t do much warmup given the squats got me there, but I did some light stuff just to remember the groove. Things went up easily, not feeling it until 365. 405 was fine but certainly I was slowing down. I was actually going to go for 425, but something just grabbed 2 nickels off the rack and threw them on. The 430 went up and was probably close to a real 1RM. Looking back, I’m not sure it’s something I could hit on a bad day. Maybe.

Anyways, there I stopped. So I started to think about how those numbers play, and what to plug in to Paul Carter’s Strong-15 template. What you do is pick a reasonable/realistic goal to hit at the end of the cycle and work back from there. So given that, my goal is 325 squat and 445 deadlift. Both will allow PR’s, and I think they are conservative given what I hit today and then should be able to work over the course of 9 weeks. Part of me thinks I could do a little more given 1. in 5/3/1 land, 9 weeks of work is 3 cycles is 30# jump, 2. what I actually lifted today. But I don’t know Paul’s routine, it may not progress as fast as 5/3/1 or Cube, and I think I can still work things out quite well. If slightly lighter weights mean slightly better technique, I’ll just get stronger in the hole and all those good things. I’d rather underestimate than over, and ultimately whatever… it’ll be a PR, right? Take it, adjust from there, and move on. If I determine I could have taken larger jumps, I’ll know that in the future.

Also, I opted to do today like this because that’s how the template will be: “man-maker”, squatting and deadlifting in the same day. Honestly, I expected my deadlift to have suffered more, but really I just felt warmed up, not worked out. But we’ll see how it goes after actual work days. 😉

All in all tho, I’m happy with how today went, and am excited to get cranking on Strong-15.