Here’s me smashing a 165 lb. bench which seemed pretty easy. If I’m able to smash an easy 165 lb. bench press then my estimated personal record could be either 170 lbs. or 175 lbs… maybe even 180 if I’m lucky enough!
As you can see I’m getting real close to 200 lb. bench pr… and I could probably get there at the end of this year or maybe even sooner. That’s the goal. My goal is to be able to smash a 200 lb. bench pr.
I got to really bring my numbers up for upcoming powerlifting meet at Albany Strength.
As far as my left leg injury goes, it seems to be perfectly fine now. I don’t feel any pain standing for a long time now which is a good thing so I might be good to get back to heavy lifting on the lower body this week. The injury didn’t really come back after I pulled that 290 lb. deadlift, it just made my legs wicked sore for a few days. That’s what happens when you settle down for a few weeks which I did. Now the leg injury is gone completely, I think, I’m pretty sure it is. We’ll see on leg day this week.
So, since my left leg and hip pain seemed to be gone this weekend, I decided to get back into heavy deadlifting today and did real good, btw. I ended my deadlift session with a 290 lb. heavy single finally. My left leg and hip pain came back a little bit after this but not as bad as it was before. Maybe I should have waited to let it heal fully before jumping right back into heavy lifting again. I’m proud of the lift but I think my deadlift startup might be off a little and I gotta figure out a way to make the hips to stop rising first. Maybe that’s why I got the hip pain ’cause of that?
I’m still proud of today, though and was glad I was able to smash a 290 lb. single finally. It made me realize that I didn’t lose any strength at all. I guess it was the minor leg injury that was holding me back.
Welp… back to settling down on the lower body work until everything heals completely. I thought it was all fully healed ’cause it felt like it. Guess I should have given it more time. Oh well, I killed it today on deadlift and was still proud of the session either way.
Admittedly, I’ve had the upper left quad injury for months and stupid me, I just kept working out the lower body through it. Like I said before, that’s not gonna make injuries go away if you keep training that body part that is hurt. It’s gonna stay there the more you keep training it. So to make injuries go away faster, you gotta stop training that body part completely for a while or just lift super light weight. I mean super duper light.
On leg day yesterday afternoon, I ended up doing barbell squats after all but only did 60 lbs. for 8 reps only on each set. Then I did leg ext. machine and leg press machine training the right leg “only”. That seems to have done the trick. My upper left quad don’t seem to be hurting anymore as of this moment. When I had the injury, it’ll start hurting when I stand for a long time and the pain seems to be gone now when I stand.
I might be good enough to get back to heavy deadlifting again this weekend. I’m taking a day off of gym just to make sure the leg pain is gone for good, if it is, I’ll get back to killing it on deadlift tomorrow by getting back into heavy sets and few rep sets.
When your legs are hurt, you still gotta stop the deadlifting ’cause deadlifting takes a lot of quad work.
I didn’t need to go to a doctor at all ’cause the injury wasn’t that serious… it was minor. I wish I’ve thought of this a long time ago and the injury would have healed a long time ago. My bad, lessons learned next time, though. The hip pain is gone and now the leg pain seems to be gone.
I want to be completely injury-free for deadlifting so I can really bring my numbers up for the next powerlifting meet at Albany Strength in Nov. There was gonna be a powerlifting meet in Albany on Aug. 30th but it ended up getting cancelled. I’m gonna do the meet in Nov. instead, I think.
Hopefully I didn’t lose more deadlifting strength, though. I’m pretty sure I didn’t but we’ll see.
For last week’s deadlift session, I decided to go really light this time… wicked light… deadlifted like 20 lbs. I’ve tried like 65 lbs. for the first set but it was still slightly painful and then I went even lighter like 20 lbs. on deadlift. Since I settled down on the deadlift last session, I don’t feel any left hip pain anymore. My left hip seems good and no longer hurting but I’m still feeling it on my upper left quad slightly. It’s all getting better already.
Yeah, like I said before in a previous post when you’re injured and feeling pain you either gotta stop training that body part completely or you can train super light. You’re not gonna make the injury go away by continuing to train it ’cause if you continue to workout through an injury, you could make it worse or you can make the injury go permanent.
Like I said above, I’m still feeling slight upper left leg pain, just a tiny bit. Maybe it will go away in a few days and I can go back to heavy deadlifting again we’ll see. I’m gonna take a week off of barbell squats this week and will try to deadlift on Sunday if I’m completely healed.
Yeah, getting injuries do suck and yes, I do get ’em once in a while. There are so many lifters in the bodybuilding and gym world who claims they don’t get “injuries” but don’t believe them. They are lying… everybody gets lifting injuries… EVERYBODY. It’s normal. It happens so big deal.
When lifters get injuries, they get so scared and get all panicky. They worry that they’ll lose their progress when they have to stop working out to rest and heal the injury. Will you lose muscle and strength for healing an injury? It all depends on how bad the injury is. If it’s a bad injury, it could take months to heal and you’ll definitely lose some muscle but you’ll get it back soon enough. If it’s a minor injury and it only takes a few weeks to heal, you won’t lose muscle and strength… in fact, you might get even more.
When I get injuries, I don’t panic and continue to stay positive. Continue to hit the gym. I either go light weight or work around the injury, there are ways to do that. I had the upper left quad injury for a while and figured out a way to get rid of it faster just by settling down on the weightlifting some… either stop lifting the part or go light weight either way. The injury will go away quickly if you do that.
I want to get back into heavy deadlifting again to try and get that 300 lb. pr back but I want to do it injury free and I came up with a plan. I’m getting all better now.
When you get lifting injuries, don’t freak out and stay positive. I just continue to go about my day when that happens and continue to stay active and move around. Hopefully I’ll be completely healed by this weekend, if not, I’ll give it another week.
I love deadlifting. It’s my favorite workout of them all and I need to do it carefully and responsibly without getting myself in the hospital or ending up in a wheelchair, lmao.
People say my deadlift form is real good but not really… I’m still trying to make it perfect.
For the first time in a long time, I have an injury but it’s not terribly bad and it’s not that serious. I won’t go to the doctor ’cause all the doctor is gonna do is tell me to stop going to the gym and that’s one thing I can’t do. Yeah, I have a slight hip and leg injury… it’s on the left side. I won’t stop working out at the gym but there are ways to work out around the injury… you can still workout the parts that are not injured. For example, I can still train the calves, I can still train the hamstrings and I can still train the right leg only but not the left leg.
Some of you my ask, how did I hurt myself a little bit? For the leg injury, I blame the leg press ’cause I’m not a fan of the leg press and for the hip injury, I blame deadlifting on that ’cause maybe my form was off a little bit?
Honestly, I had the leg injury for a long while and was trying to figure out a way to get rid of it. Earlier this summer, I took a week off when I was out on vacation. That didn’t really heal it all the way. Then when I came back home, I started training with light weights to see if that will do it but nope, even training with lighter weights will make the injury come back or make it worse.
So I thought, “Fuck it… mabye I’ll take a little break from barbell work completely” until the injuries heal completely. That’s the idea, I guess. When you’re injured, you can’t continue to train that hurt body part ’cause that’s not gonna make the injury go away. It’ll go away if you stop training it and you need to stop training it until it goes away completely.
It sucks but I gotta do what I gotta do. It’s probably gonna take me a couple of weeks or a little more to heal the injuries all the way.
It’s weird ’cause I stayed pretty consistent with barbell work for a long while and now I think I’m gonna have to stop for a few weeks but I won’t stop working out. I’l just move on to machines and dumbbell work. I think it’s a good idea for me to take a little hiatus from barbell lifting completely ’cause my left shoulder is bothering me a little bit, too… haha.
I haven’t had a lifting injury in a long time but no regrets getting them, though ’cause you can learn something from them. Getting injuries may make you want to take form more seriously ’cause bad form is the main reason people get lifting injuries.
I’m not terribly bad so don’t worry so I won’t need any crutches or anything.
I want to be completely injury free when lifting the big three: deadlift, bench and squat. So once my injuries heal completely, I’ll get back to barbell lifting asap and get back to heavy lifting. It may be a few weeks or a whole month, we’ll see.
When I first started bodybuilding & lifting weights, I used to obsess with supplements and protein powders. I used to spend a lot of money on them month after month. I used to believe supplements and protein powders were the way to go in order to get ripped and get big muscle. Now I avoid supplements and protein powders like the plague and I don’t do that shit anymore.
I agree with Scoob 100% that so many bodybuilders and other types of lifters are so brainwashed into thinking that supplements are the way to go. A lot of them have so many chemicals in them that can be dangerous for your body, anyway. Some of them can be loaded with sugars and they can make you fat as well.
Since I gave up supplements completely, I now prefer to build muscle from real food. Eating good and clean is not hard. To get protein all you need to do is eat that from meats like chicken breast, pork, steak, ground turkey, fish, etc. When it comes to chicken and protein, the only chicken you want is chick breast. You want to stay away from fried chicken, chicken legs, bbq chicken, chicken wings, etc. ’cause they are too fatty. Chicken breast is the best way to go. Another good protein source is a few dairy products like lowfat cottage cheese and greek yogurt which I also eat a lot of. Get protein from eggs or egg whites as well.
You still need your good carbs ’cause you don’t want to eat just a high protein diet only… you gotta have your complex carbs like fruits, vegetables and whole grains which I eat a lot of.
You also need your good fats like nuts (preferably almonds), avocado and natural peanut butter.
It’s not hard to eat clean at all and what I listed above is all you pretty much need. I eat a mostly clean nutrition and from mostly real food.
I do have cheat meals ’cause you don’t want to avoid junk food completely ’cause you gotta have balance. I don’t go too crazy with junk food. Only junk food I still like to have is ice cream, sometimes fast food, chinese and pizza. I also consider Cliff Bars a cheat meal ’cause I like those too.
I hate that so many lifters and gym goers are so naive into thinking that supplements are the way to go. The reason so many buy a lot of supplements and brainwashed by it ’cause of sites like bodybuilding.com and tnation that does nothing but ram supplements down our throats. The same with the muscle and bodybuilding magazines that are out there, they promote supplements heavily too.
Another reason I stopped buying supplement’s ’cause they are overpriced. They can be pretty costly around $25 – $35 or over and I can’t afford to buy them on a monthly basis when I run out. What’s even crazier is that you’ll see a lot of lifters using more than one supplement product which is dangerous for your body, in my opinion.
I can’t take supplements anyways ’cause my doctor gave me orders to stop using them for my own health reasons which I will not get into details about. That’s okay, though ’cause supplements are a waste of time and money.
The only supplement I need for my workouts is a nice hot cup of green tea and drink cold water throughout the day which I do both of those.
I agree with Scoob, “Eat Real Food”. Finally, Scoob posted a great video which I agree with totally on. You can still build some serious muscle by eating real food. I’ve been doing it and it works wonders for me. You should try it too.
You see it online and you see it in the real world in person. People with bodybuilder like physiques getting so much flak for wanting to be shirtless all the time. It’s a real problem with male bodybuilders in today’s society anyway. When a man with a great physique that wants to be shirtless then chances are he’s gonna get told by someone to put a shirt on.
We’re now in an age where people find it offensive that men with great bodies wanting to show it all off. Yet when overweight fat asses and chubby men take their shirts off, nobody says anything and that is accepted. That’s how fucked up this is.
When us men with the great physiques wanna show off… people say it’s offensive and they call us egotistical attention whores for wanting to do it too. Us men get into a lot of trouble for wanting to show off our big pecs and six pack abs.
It’s unfair, ya know? That’s how society is nowadays. You just have to learn to accept it. Yes, I too get some flak and some backlash for wanting to show off my physique but all successful bodybuilders go through it too. I don’t know why we get so much flak and negativity for wanting to show off after busting our asses for years of hard work.
I think a big part of the reason people don’t want to see muscular bodies is ’cause jealousy is a major part of that, absolutely. There’s that word again ’cause it’s gotta be jealousy. I think it’s because some people want the physique we have and they don’t have that yet. So instead of treating us like heroes, they treat the fat asses trying to lose weight heroes than us.
That’s what I don’t like about the bodybuilding world. It’s all the negativity and drama that surrounds it. In my opinion, I think it’s amazing that so many successful bodybuilders wanna show off their hard work ’cause I think it’s wrong to hide it, ya know? That’s just my opinion and I’m sticking with it.
When bodybuilders get a successful ripped and buff physique, gotta be ready for some criticism and some haters ’cause you’re going to get those whether you like it or not. You’re going to get people accusing you of using steroids and blah blah blah blah.
It’s all unfair and wrong. I think we have every right to show off our body ’cause it’s OUR fucking body and not yours so you have no right to tell us what we can and cannot do. This is what bodybuilding is here for… looking great and showing off your hard work.
Anyway, here’s me doing a little bodybuilding posing for fun at a beach in Cape Cod.
Man, today was a killer deadlift session. Today, I’ve done 2 sets of 255 lbs. for 5 reps each. Then I did 260 for 3 reps and then 265 for three reps. For the next set, I did 280 for a heavy single which felt easy and then ended my deadlift session with a 285 single.
This is my last deadlift session for a long while ’cause I’m going on vacation next week which means that next week, I’ll be taking a full week off of weight lifting. I really need it. I haven’t had a week off of weight lifting in a real long time so next week is a perfect week to take one.
Just two more days of workouts this week and then I’ll be done working out for a while ’cause I need a break from it. Next week, take a full week off from the gym totally.
Some of you may think that’s bad but it’s not. You may ask will I lose muscle and lose strength? No. In fact, I will get a lot more of both ’cause you’re giving your body time to rest and heal which is what I need pretty badly. When I come back from vacation, I’ll probably be a lot stronger.
It’s okay to take a week off from weightlifting once in a blue moon, just don’t over do it, ya know? I take a week off from weightlifting in the gym like once or twice a year. Not a whole lot.
Just gonna do leg day and arm day this week and that’s it for a while.
Today was a killer deadlift session and I’m on fire again. Since I was able to smash a 285 lb. single then my estimated p.r. on deadlift would probably be 300. I’m trying to get to 300 lbs. for more reps but I’ll get there soon. Hopefully I get there this Aug. if lucky enough.
I am feeling stronger and stronger on the big three: squat, bench and deadlift. It feels amazing. Glad I got into powerlifting!
Yep, people refusing to re-rack their weights at public gyms has been a real problem like a decade or over. It’s a big problem at pretty much all gyms across America and even the rest of the world. People refusing to pick up after themselves is real annoying, I know. At the local gym that I go to in my hometown, it’s the same thing. People refusing to re-rack their weights each time I go.
When they leave weight plates on bars and machines, I don’t say anything ’cause that’s NOT my job but I do go around putting the weights back even if I didn’t use them. I pick up after people all the time. Why do I do this? It’s not only that I like to show respect to a public gym which is what it’s all about but also showing respect to the staff that work there. Sometimes the staff at the gym are not strong enough to go around picking up 45 lb. weight plates.
At the local gym I go to, there is a guy that works there who goes around picking up after people but he seems to have stopped for some reason and he’s hardly ever around when I’m there anyways. There is a manager/director of the gym but this person is hardly ever around to take care of the place which is ridiculous, in my eyes.
I used to love my local gym that I go to but it’s gone downhill fast. I continue to go ’cause it’s the only gym closer to home so I have no choice but to continue to use it.
People who refuse to re-rack weights just suck and I’m not afraid to say it.
Why do people do it? Well for a lot of reasons… they’re just dumb and not smart, they are egotistical/narcissistic, selfish, etc. I think some people just do it to piss gym goers off on purpose, honestly.
This is a real problem all over and it’s gotta stop.
The reason it’s not a polite thing to do is ’cause it’s a lot of work to remove a bunch of 45 lb. weight plates which is a waste of energy for your workout, ya know? Plus, not everyone in the gym is that strong to lift it.
People in gyms suck in general, though. That’s why I keep to myself and try not to socialize with people in the gym. Just throw my headphones on, don’t make eye contact with people while I’m working out and then I’m good.
I go there to get a good workout in and build muscle and that’s it. I don’t have time for bullshit.
Whenever I post a video of my lifting, sometimes other powerlifters will always try to point a mistake that I might of done. In other words, they would try to critique my form and that usually happens when I upload a lifting video for all to see. They would tell me to do this and do that, don’t do this and don’t do that… blah blah blah. They would critique every aspect of my lifting and would try to get me to lift their way.
You see, I don’t usually lift the same way other powerlifters do. I just go by what the instructional videos through youtube and the internet tells me, ya know? And another thing, just because powerlifters are very experienced and have won a lot of trophies and broke a lot of records doesn’t necessarily mean they know what they’re doing. I mean, I’ve seen some of the greatest powerlifters and veterans lift with the shittiest form I’ve ever seen. Go watch some powerlifting competitions through youtube for proof on that. For example, when they go start up at the deadlift, they have some of the worst startups I’ve ever seen when they go walk up to the bar.
Many powerlifters even the great ones deadlift with rounded backs, they stand too far from the bar or they lean too far over the bar, etc. I’ve seen it all, it’s crazy. There are also too many deadlifters who lean far back on their lockouts meaning hyper-extending the back which is bad. Many powerlifters tell me to deadlift with your head looking straight forward but no, I think it’s better to deadlift with the head being neutral. Other powerlifters told me a way to deadlift is that the butt needs to be pointing down to the floor with the chest aiming up at the ceiling. I’ve tried that and it’s uncomfortable for me.
The way I like to deadlift is that I like to stand narrow, I reach down to the bar without lowering my hips at all ’cause the hips needs to be higher than the knees and the bar needs to be over mid-foot. You need to straighten your back and making sure everything is tight then you’re ready to make the pull.
Also, speaking of pulling… so many deadlifters make the mistake that it’s just a pull movement only when it’s not. When you deadlift, you think of it as being a leg press as well so when the bar comes off the floor, you use a lot of leg drive to lock it out. Using leg drive by pushing the legs to the floor as hard as you can like a leg press. That’s how I always deadlift.
I’m pretty sick of the egos in the powerlifting world acting like it’s the only way to lift and it’s getting tiresome. As long as you’re following the commands in powerlifting competitions, it doesn’t matter how you lift. You should just lift whatever works for you. You don’t have to lift how others lift. Just gotta listen to your body and lift what’s right. That’s the way my attitude always been. I’ve always done things my way.
I prefer to be a self-taught lifter. I never really enjoyed learning from other lifters. I’ve always felt comfortable doing my own thing. Every lifter is different… gotta respect that. I may not like other lifters form and technique but I just shut my mouth and let them do their own thing.
I think people critique my form ’cause they know I’m new to the powerlifting game and they’re afraid that I might be better than them and they don’t want that. They give me advice on my form and once I correct it for them, it’s always something else that’s wrong. It’s bullshit. So I just say, fuck ’em and do things my way, ya know? That’s the way to be.
Kev
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