Looking back over the last months I was blessed to hit a new PR on my deadlift which was 10 1/2lb over my previous one.
I had been plateaued for quite a while; then I went to Ed Coan’s Powerlifting Seminar and with his coaching on the mental aspect of lifting, I broke through.
At 66 years young, I pulled more than twice my bodyweight. However, compared to what the really strong lifters do, it pales in comparison. That doesn’t matter to me though, because they don’t live in my skin, I do.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to hit 405lb!
Something else happened this past week during our quarterly strength/work capacity tests
- I tested with 285lb which was ten pounds more than my last test (note: we use 70% of our 1RM and lift it for max reps in ten minutes)
- I also got three more reps this time with 33 reps total
- the last test looked like this 275 x 30=8,250lb
- my most recent test looked like this 285 x 33=9,404lb
- that was an increase of 1,155lb
Here’s the funny thing, though, I hadn’t done a lot of heavy deadlifts in the last few months. I did sub-max lifts pretty often; but I did quite a bit of sled work plus quite a bit of work with my Adex club and mace.
non-gym training http://cavestrong.net from Frank DiMeo on Vimeo.
The sled work usually lasted about 30 minutes each time, with emphasis on pulling forward, backward, and laterally. I know this added to my work capacity on my tests.
Also the work I did with clubs and maces really strengthened my grip, wrists, and forearms. My grip didn’t fail during the tests.
This is what worked for me; whether other people will get similar results is up to them.
Each person is different and will progress at their own pace.
The Cave 