Progress Report: More plateaus, sort of

Here's an out of frame shot of me deadlifting 435 lbs. no belt with straps. I could've went up as you can see the bar speed from where I pulled it off the ground was fairly fast but the flooring was kind of soft and I could feel my spine flexing out of line so I quit to prevent any back injury. The reason it's not in frame is because there was a lot of foot traffic around me and I didn't feel like having my phone stepped on.

So here's what you call a plateau:

I got 225 lbs above me and I'm trying to deadpress it. As a matter of fact I tried to do it two times.

I was thinking that if I substituted my dumbbell chest flyes for some decline chest presses, I would see a gain. It was kind of a gain in that I tried to press it twice. I felt a little stronger than my previous deadpress attempts and the fact that I went for it twice kind of constitutes a gain for me, so I'm going to continue experimenting with the decline press by bottoming out the bar close to my neck to try and achieve a nice stretch along my front deltoids with a severe sharp angle bend in my elbows.

The reason I quit the chest flyes was this:

This was from a couple weeks ago. I was using chest flyes as an accessory movement to my deadpress. As you can see there's no progress that has been made between then until now other than the fact that for this week's training session I got the bar up twice and that was for the simple fact that I switched from chest flyes to decline presses as an accessory movement. 

As an aside, I used to do the leverage chest press machine but I stopped because it wasn't the actual weight I could bench press. I've tested and compared both and usually my bench press is 40-70 lbs weaker than my leverage machine chest press. So if I had to guesstimate from the fact I did a leverage machine chest press max of 275 lbs, my max barbell bench press was around 225 lbs. So I changed to the deadpress because usually my touch and go barbell chest press is 10-15 lbs stronger than my deadpress. 

That's why I like strength training. Everything is pretty much black and white meaning the act of getting strong is very training specific. You have to look at your lifts as the end result of doing specific accessory movements. If you do the right accessory movements, you make gains. If you don't, you plateau. That's why if an accessory movement is not helping you squash a sticking point in your lift, stop doing that accessory movement as soon as possible and switch to a different one. 

 Mostly all your plateaus are training related.  It's pretty hard to skimp out on the nutrition part of strength training. All you gotta do is eat a bunch of animal protein. The resting part is easy too. If you feel tired, go to sleep. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. 

Anyways here's my numbers.

Gym Monday 11 p.m. 7/21/14

Shoulder press life fitness machine 205-1

Life fitness seated leg press machine 405-1

Free motion bicep curl cable machine 150-1

Rack pull 505-1, 525-0, 525-0

Decline bench press 225-0

Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine 70-1,  85-1

One legged stiff legged deadlift 

Left 175-2, 195-1

Right 175-2, 195-1

Gym Friday 7/25/14 3 pm 

Dead chest press 225-1

Dead chest press legs in the air 175-1

Conventional deadlift with straps 435-4

Stiff legged deadlift on 45 lb plates 495-1

Life fitness seated lat row cable machine 260-2

Technogym one legged leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 

Left 140-1, 160-0

Right 140-1, 160-0