Progress report: Dissection of busting a plateau

Here's a far reaching analogy but I'm going to make it anyways.  Building up to a personal best record lift is a lot like building construction.  With a building you can't have any top floors without first constructing a solid base upon which to start stacking thousands of tons of concrete floors, walls and ceilings.

Busting a plateau is the same.  You have to build the base.  When you're down in the hole in the squat or when you're bent over in the deadlift or when the bar is resting on your chest in the bench press are all considered the base of the lift.  Much like building construction, you have to solidify that base if you expect to bust through a plateau.

Case in point, here I am attempting a 545 lb. stiff legged deadlift beltless with straps. 

Notice how I don't even lift it a couple inches off the ground so the lift gets a 0 but the lift is still valuable to helping me accomplish defeating  the plateau.

Here's another example of me trying to conquer a plateau.  I'm attempting a 365 pause squat attempt.

I gave this a 1 because my pause at the bottom was held well and when I tried to explode up I did manage to move it a couple inches.

Now compare this with my previous week's attempt at a 365 lb. pause squat attempt.

The pause at the bottom was negligible and the upwards movement was negligible as well. Still I rated the lift at a 1 but it was a lower quality 1 than this week's pause squat attempt.

If you're going to progress, you have to notice these subtle differences between your attempts.  This week's attempt at a 365 lb pause squat was significantly improved over last week's.   I was in the hole longer and my liftoff was maybe a couple inches higher than the previous week's.

You can use this system to defeat any plateau whether it's bench pressing, tricep extensions, or bicep curls.

There are detractors of my system.  They say you'll get injured attempting a 1 rep max like that week in and week out.  They say you'll fry your central nervous system maxing out like that.

But they're wrong for the simple fact that I only do one type of exercise once a week.  My alternate lift to the pause squat is the leg press or the hack squat coupled with rack pulls.  Do you think I would be able to put 365 lbs. on the back of my neck without being able to rack pull 535 lbs.? Of course I wouldn't.  Do you think I'm attempting a 545 lb. stiff leg deadlift twice a week?  Of course not.  It would wreck my shoulders so I'm alternating it with single leg deadlifts.  My single leg deadlift is significantly less than my two legged stiff leg deadlift so my shoulders are spared any aggravation of injury or damage I might have taken on in my double legged deadlift.

If you're going to be successful at making gains without injury you have to go above and beyond your limits and you have to do each lift sparingly.

Anyways here are my numbers.  Here's what the numbers mean.

Home Thursday 1230 pm 6/26/14
Shoulder press seated 255-1
Stiff legged deadlift 545-0
Pec fly dumbbells pair of:
50's-2
Pendlay row 365-1
Pause squat wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 365-1

Gym Sunday 10 p.m. 6/22/14
Leverage chest press machine 370-0
One legged stiff legged deadlift
Left 175-1, 185-1
Right 175-1, 185-1
Rack pull 545-0
Bench press legs in the air 205-0
Leg press machine freemotion 390-1
Freemotion bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine 85-1

Workout notes: So I switched to doing a one legged stiff leg deadlift to save my shoulders from any further re-injury of any tears in my shoulders I might have taken on from my day of double leg deadlifting.

Here's the form:

This is what's going to help me bust through my deadlift plateau.  Like I said it's less weight but it still works my back and upper quadricep area next to the groin without any further re-injury to my shoulders.