Progress Report: What got you from point A to point B will not always get you to point C

Here's my progress report and the numbers recorded.

Gym Wednesday 10:45 a.m.  8/13/14
Life fitness seated shoulder press machine 205-1
Stiff legged one legged deadlift
Left 225-1
Right 225-1
Precor incline press 300-1
Life fitness seated bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Life fitness seated leg press machine 405-1
Life fitness seated decline press cable machine 200-0, 200-1
One hand rack pull
Left 315-1, 335-0, 315-1
Right 315-1, 335-0, 315-0

Gym Sunday 2 pm 8/17/14
Dead chest press 235-0
Dead chest press legs in the air 235-1
Conventional deadlift on 45 lb plates  515-1
Stiff legged deadlift  on 45 lb plates 515-0
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine life fitness 130-1
Seated leg press life fitness machine 405-1
Life fitness seated lat row machine 305-1

Here's a video of me attempting a 235 lb. dead chest press attempt:

Now mind you I gave this attempt a "0" because even though I got it off the rack crossbars, it was just my chest and stomach muscles bracing upwards against the bar and consequently lifting the bar up not my arms.  That's why I gave this attempt a "0" on 8/17.

Interestingly enough however I did manage to clear the bar off the racks when I crossed my legs in the air using mostly my arms and a negligible amount of upward force from my activated stomach and chest muscles, so I gave it a "1" on 8/17.  When my legs are crossed and dangling in the air, it makes my chest and lower back flat, so I have no noticeable arch in my torso.  This seems to make it easy to get my arms underneath the bar and consequently load my lats with tension which provides some liftoff assistance. However, I don't know the real reason why I'm stronger with my legs crossed in the air while pressing as opposed to when my feet are on the floor. It's just something I've noticed and I don't know how to address it because it's generally thought that chest pressing with your feet on the ground is supposed to be the more stable and thus stronger lift.  I'm just going to ignore this weird phenomena and focus on the fact that I'm making progress in at least one of my chest press lifts.

I wish I had a video of my dead chest press with my legs crossed in the air, but honestly I didn't think it was going to be more powerful than with my feet on the floor so I didn't even set up my camera phone for the shot.  Next time I post a progress report, it will have a video of the lift.

Moving on to the deadlift, I've been experiencing lower back pain due to me conventional deadlifting 500+ lbs and rack pulling the same amount in the span of a week, so I decided to switch my back strengthening lifts up and do one handed rack pulls instead of the double handed rack pull.  It was a success because it did alleviate my lower back pain due to the lesser amount of weight I can pull with just one hand compared to a double handed pull, but it was also a failure because when I went to do my conventional deadlifts I couldn't even get 415 past my knees while standing on two 45 lb plates.  Usually I have no problem with that kind of weight.

To my remedy this, I plan on adding a Romanian deadlift to just focus on my spine and hamstrings. Here's a video of the lift if you don't know what I'm talking about:

Of course I'm going to do it my way because I'm stubborn and don't want to listen to anybody.  I'm going to do heavy singles with my knees in an almost locked position.  Who knows? I might even lock my knees.  I'm just going to experiment with it and see how it goes.  Maybe I'll sever my spine in half and have to retire from lifting and stop cluttering the internet up with my pseudoscience.

The trick to the Romanian deadlift is keeping the spine straight.  You do that by sucking in a little amount of air through the nose to elevate the chest and lock the upper back but not so much air that you put the lower back into an arched position. You hold your breath throughout the entire range of motion of the lift until you reach the top.  This should help in preventing slipping the discs of your spine.

The reason I'm adding the Romanian deadlift is that it should help tax the spinal muscles and align the vertebra in my back.  The reason I couldn't do well in my conventional deadlift this past week was my spine and the muscles that are responsible for keeping it straight atrophied and became lax because I neglected to do a double handed type deadlift variation.  I only did the one handed rack pull and one legged deadlift on 8/13. These types of lifts focus more on the oblique muscles and to a severely lesser extent the spinal erector muscles, so I'm going to add the Romanian deadlift to address this issue.


Of special note you'll notice my rest periods between workout sessions are longer.  I took around 99 hours to rest and recover between training sessions last week.  The reason is that I don't want to burn out too quick.  My last block of training lasted about 6 months and then I took an almost two week rest between training sessions.  I lost a lot of strength in that two weeks, and the reason for that was I felt I needed the rest to allow my central nervous system to recover. I was only allowing myself 72+ hours of rest between workouts and that had a lot to do with me burning out in my opinion.

Another thing about the 96 hour rest period is that when I go into a workout after that amount of recovery timelength I feel explosive and even a little bit enthusiastic to pump iron.  Because all the lactic acid burns itself out of my muscles due to the extended recovery period and hence my muscle soreness subsides, my mind seems to be in a better mood and not made to feel so victimized to go into a heavy lifting training session and attack the weights.