Weightlifting Goals

My New Year's resolutions were to bench 3 plats on a side and squat 4. I took some significant steps in different directions toward those goals this week.Last Thursday I found out I'm just 15 pounds away from hitting the 3 plate goal on the bench. We usually do high volume work outs (5-8 reps) so I'm not really trained to focus all my strength into one lift, which lowers my one-rep max potential. But last week I went for a one-rep max anyway and repped out 305, the most I've done in years. I'm okay with the amount of weight but what makes me really happy is how I did it. Just as the weight came off my chest I lost momentum for some reason and the bar stopped moving. Months ago, that would've been the end of that attempt but I was able to recover and push the bar all the way up. That's hard to do and I'm more proud of that than the actual amount. Being able to recover is a better picture of my overall strength than simply a smooth lift. I built up this ability by doing a couple things: failing enough that I stopped being scared of failure, working on a "lock 0ut" exercise and doing enough volume in our workouts that I've built up a strong enough base from which I find strength reserves. I'm sure there's a life principle in there somewhere...

I've just gone down in my squat max, though, at least with the new way we're squatting. Jason just bought a squat box for our workouts. We used to just sit down far enough for our butts to touch the top of a bench (just below parallel) and then bounced back up, carrying our momentum throughout the entire lift. But now we're sitting all the way down on the box (again, just below parallel), stopping in a complete sitting position, before standing back up. This means we lose all momentum in the lift, making the return trip back up almost twice as hard. Last night was the first time we've tried it and it's going to take awhile to get my form down. Hopefully I'll have a quick learning curve because I tried less than 3 plates on a side and couldn't finish the lift. So, it's going to be awhile before hitting 4 plats, as I'd like. It's going to be more work but it will make me stronger in the long run. Again, I'm sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere...