This is what happens:
225 deadpress missed attempt using 6" cambered bar with hands set approximately 2 inches below the horizontal plane of my chest
The thing I like about the deadpress compared to the benchpress is that the deadpress provides no wear and tear on the shoulders and elbows that the benchpress brings on. Constantly unracking and racking the bar puts a great deal of stress on your shoulders, wrists and elbows which could result in small tears in the tendons and ligaments involved in the movement. With the deadpress, all of your energy is spent on actually making the lift. You just slide the bar over you provided you're using a power rack and then explode upwards with your arms. The benchpress is essentially two exercises: the lift off from the rack and then lowering it on your chest, and then there's the actual chest press. The liftoff and the setup take up a lot of energy that is better used to beat your personal record.
Another thing about the deadpress is that there's no cheating involved in it. No arching of the lower spine to help decrease the range of motion that the bar has to travel down to your chest. No rebound effect that you get when benchpressing off suspended above you bar holders and then essentially bouncing the bar off the chest. Even if you pause at the bottom there still is stored elastic energy in your front deltoids and pecs that helps you explode the bar off the chest.
Here's another thing that happens when you take too much rest:
425 lb deadlift attempt with straps
There you go another miss. Over the nearly two weeks I took off, I of course could feel myself getting weaker and muscles getting smaller. When I drive for example, I lean forward a little because of my overgrown lats resting on the back of the seat. In under a week's worth of rest, I no longer had that leaning problem because my lats had considerably atrophied thus the above video happens.
Why did I rest you ask? I was plateauing, basically. I remember trying to do 545 lb. rack pull attempt about three weeks ago and I couldn't even lift it up a little. I felt like my central nervous system was too fatigued to allow me to get strong. So I decided to take a rest and do some yard work at my house and consequently I got weak.
But did I really get weak? Sure my muscles wasted away but my bones, tendons and ligaments didn't. So many people think that strength is just a function of the muscles when it's not. When you lift heavy it's not only your muscles getting strong, it's your body as a whole getting strong. Your skeleton, your tendons, your ligaments, your heart, your lungs are all strengthened when you train. After all these years of training my skeleton is thicker and denser. I use to be able to wrap my index finger and thumb around my wrist and touch them together before I started lifting heavy. Now there's about an inch gap between my fingers.
You have to look at your muscles as your first layer of strength and your bone density, your cardio vascular endurance, and the tension strength of your ligaments and tendons as your second level of strength. Ask yourself this why I was able to go from 85 lb. pause squat in January to a 335 lb. pause squat in June. Previous to my 85 lb. pause squat in January, I hadn't done any exercise in about three months. Do you think someone who is brand new to lifting would be able to accomplish the same feat? Of course not is the answer.
Sure, when you quit lifting to rest or to fulfill life obligations your muscles will get weaker but that second level of strength, the bones and tendons and ligaments, take way longer to atrophy. So even after you quit lifting for a length of time, you will be come back quickly to the level of strength you left off from.
So let's take a look at my numbers before and after my nearly two week hiatus:
Here's what the numbers mean.
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
leg press free motion 390-1
Bench press legs in the air 205-0
Freemotion bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Tricep extension rope attachment cable machine 85-1
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 11 a.m. 6/29/14
Chest press leverage machine 370-0, 370-1
Freemotion bicep curl cable machine 150-1
Life fitness seated leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 390-1, 405-1
Freemotion chest press cable machine 200-1
One legged stiff legged deadlift
Left 175-1, 185-1, 195-1
Right 175-2, 185-1, 195-1
Rack pull 555-0
Tricep extension rope cable machine 100-1
7/3/14 Home Thursday 2 pm
Yardwork
Yeah I'm counting yardwork as a workout. You ever try mowing about 400 sq. ft of tall weeds with a 20 year old lawn mower while it's constantly sputtering out and then you have to pull the starter cord about 15 to 20 times to get it started again. Each of those pulls was about if I had to guess at least 30 lbs. of tensile weight and my body was definitely raw and sore when I woke up the next day.
Home 7/10/14 1230 pm
Chest press cambered bar 225-1
Chest press cambered bar legs in the air 165-1, 165-2
Conventional deadlift 455-1
Stiff legged deadlift 385-1
Pendlay rows 315-1
Pause squat wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves 315-2
Gym Monday 3 pm 7/14/14
Shoulder press seated 275-0, 275-1, 285-0
Seated bicep curl cable machine free motion 150-1
Leg press machine wearing inzer strongman knee sleeves life fitness 405-0, 405-1
Rack pull 505-0
One legged stiff legged deadlift
Left 175-1
Right 175-1
Tricep extension straight bar attachment cable machine 100-1
Pec fly dumbbells pair of 60's-2
So I took the break from lifting and got weak. No surprise. But will I get back to my previous strength levels? Yeah of course and I'll do it quickly.
You'll also notice between 7/10 and 7/14 I took a ninety nine hour rest between workouts. I had to quit doing the late evening workouts. It's hard to battle through mental fatigue and try to beat lifting records when you're working out at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning. There's just something about lifting after ten p.m. that really affects how I perform underneath a bar. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's my circadian rhythms and how they're shutting down my body to prepare for sleep. I get kind of disoriented when I lift after 10 p.m. I start forgetting what day it is sometimes and my mind wanders and I lose focus on the lift. So I stopped lifting late night and just do it during the day from now on. As long as I lift two times a week, I should do okay.
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