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Health and Fitness

Here’s me smashing a 290 lb. deadlift heavy single today… it was easy, felt like I could do more…

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I had a great deadlift session earlier this afternoon. Feeling strong on deadlift again. Easily smashed a 290 lb. heavy single. Felt so easy, I felt I could do more. Like the IG post says, I could probably smash a 300 lb. single and will give it a shot next week.

I could probably get past 300 lbs. for more reps very soon.

Trying to take technique and form very seriously and I just had a veteran powerlifter tell me in FB this lift was perfect.

Covid 19 didn’t take away my strength at all to be honest. In fact, it actually made me slightly stronger, lol….

Enjoy.

Kev

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When getting Back in the gym after time off from it, can’t really get into heavy lifting right away…

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While it does feel real good to get back in a gym after time off from it due to pandemic, I really shouldn’t go crazy with the heavy lifting right away and I haven’t been. I’ve been going slightly lighter. It’s good to do that ’cause if you go wicked heavy right when you go in, you’re gonna feel so sore the next day you wouldn’t be able to walk around well… haha… knowing from my own experience. So I’m gonna take it easy for two weeks before I get back into serious lifting and strength training.

Yeah, I did lose a little bit of muscle probably but I can get it back. I’m back into powerlifting training on the big three: bench, deadlift and squat but like I said, taking it easy at first. Not gonna do any crazy heavy lifting just yet. I just gotta take some time to get used to the gym again, ya know?

When I do get back into serious strength training in powerlifting, I’m gonna really spend a lot of time trying to build up my pr numbers on the big three. Doing a lot of reading on powerlifting, I read that the secret to making quick progress is “never” missing a lift. You’re not gonna make progress by missing lifts all the time in powerlifting. I gotta stop missing lifts and maybe I’ll get somewhere soon.

If it wasn’t for this stupid pandemic, my powerlifting numbers would have had a major improvement but I’m gonna work on that for the rest of the year and all of next year. Focus on powerlifting. I’ll do still bodybuilding like always of course, I’ll never ignore hypertrophy training ’cause that’s important. I’m still gonna do those heavy sets and few reps on the big three.

I really want my pr numbers to go up and improve. I’m hoping to go over 300 lbs. on deadlift, hoping to get up to 200 lbs. on squat and bench too. Maybe a little more if I can.

I miss powerlifting training though and glad to get back into it finally. I really miss competing in powerlifting meets too as I didn’t get to do that this year. I wanted to compete for Albany Strength and wanted to compete for a USAPL meet since I registered for them but now all this pandemic shit happened. Someday I will compete in a powerlifting meet ’cause I love those. Maybe in 2021???? Cross fingers for now.

Kev

Health and Fitness

How I could keep getting chest gains and not lose my bench press numbers… a plan…

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I usually don’t brag about my own body but I like what I see here. My chest looking pretty good and I’m finally starting to get that bodybuilder look that I want thanks to all that bench pressing that I’ve been doing ever since I started powerlifting.

Since Covid-19 aka the Chinese Virus shut down a lot of gyms in America especially NY State, I’m out of the gym for a couple of weeks. Now I gotta find ways to keep those chest gains and hopefully get even more. I got a couple of plans… do pushups, of course. I’ll do regular pushups and knuckle pushups. Do as many as I can for a couple of sets. If I want to do even heavier pushups, I’ll do pushups with a bookbag strapped on my back and load it up with heavy books if I want to do heavy 3 – 5 sets ’cause that’ll work. I won’t lose those heavy bench press gains that way. I’ll figure out a way to do chest dips somehow too.

I don’t have my dumbbell collection anymore ’cause I sold it in a yardsale but I’ll figure out ways to work out at home still.

I’ll figure out a way to keep gains on every other body part too. For squats, since I don’t have my own squat rack, I can still do bodyweight squats with heavy backpack. I’ll figure out a way to workout calves and hamstrings. Will figure out a way to do back workouts by doing pull ups somewhere.

I’ll figure out all of this stuff by educating myself through google. If your gym is closed then don’t worry about it… you can workout at home. You can workout anywhere. Be creative and think differently.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Example of people benching with their butt coming off the bench during their training sessions…

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Guesses on what the best pound-for-pound bencher will do at the Con-cret Pro Bench at the @arnoldsports festival next Saturday??? Post guesses below and with her luck! . . Reposted from @jenthompson132 I was so pissed I missed my 3rd lift, I took every plate off the bar and weighed them on our certified scale. Guess what?? It was actually 327.5. Made me feel better about missing it. 😂 I perform 3 competition lifts every other week. I plot out what my heaviest lift will be at the very beginning of my training cycle. So this has been a planned lift since late December when I started this cycle. The @usapowerlifting @arnoldsports Classic is next weekend. I wanted to hit 325 the week before and set myself up for a 330 on comp day. I hit 3 competition singles in training. The first lift is 85% of the heaviest lift (325 * .85 = 275). The second lift is 95% (325* .95= 310). Then the third is the max out. I keep my competition numbers fairly close to these percentages. I feel like the first one is a smoke show. It didn't take too much energy and I'm showing the judges I got this. Form is good and feeling fine. The second one is a heavy lift and I use it to gauge what I got left in the tank. I know I won't miss it, but it's heavy enough to be a good indicator. If it pops off my chest with great speed, I'll go for something huge. If it felt slow and a little hard I'll go a little more conservative. I'm lifting on the @roguefitness stage in the Expo at 10:00 am next Saturday. Then I'll be at the @sbd booth for a bit. Hope to see you there ! #usapl #usapowerlifting #champion #deadlift #squat #bench #whyicompete #LIFTCLEAN #rpstrength #sbdapparel #titansupportsystems #a7intl #ryrogue #promerasports

A post shared by USA Powerlifting® (USAPL) (@usapowerlifting) on

Seriously, why has the “butt coming off the bench” during bench training been accepted by the public? It’s pissing me off really. This is an example of what I’m talking about. People who bench try to go for a pr and then they call it a “pr” when the butt comes off the bench. I’m still standing by my opinion that when you bench for a “pr” and your butt comes off, no lift. Period. End of story. It’s not a “personal record” ’cause the butt coming off the bench is clearly cheating. Plus to me, it looks dangerous and you’re asking for a bad bench press accident sooner or later.

Not only has this been accepted by the public now, it has also been accepted by the powerlifting industry and it’s a shame that “usapowerlifting” re-sharing it on their instagram accounts. Are they encouraging it now? The butt coming off bench maybe illegal during competition but I wouldn’t be surprised they’ll make it legal someday in the future in the usapl.

How much do you want to bet that this lady in this video won’t be able bench 275 if her butt hadn’t came off the bench?

This is becoming more and more common and becoming more accepted. Once in a while, someone calls them out for lifting the butt off but other people wouldn’t care or would help try and defend the lifter for doing it. Other people become defensive when called out for it.

Powerlifting may seem fun and addictive yes but one thing to keep in mind, you’re going to be surrounded by a bunch of huge egos. It is said that powerlifters are humble and down to earth but not from what I’m seeing. You’ll see so many powerlifters who are full of themselves who are too desperate to lift more weight and they’ll do anything it takes that it didn’t matter if it kills themselves doing it. They lift the butt off ’cause it helps them lift more weight.

There is nothing wrong with lifting weights you can handle and makes you comfortable. You don’t have to shoot for 1 rep maxes all the freakin’ time.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Still got that left leg injury but going to physical therapy for it next week…

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For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to get back to doing lower body work but I’ve been trying to get back into it lightly and carefully since I still got that left leg injury. I went to the doctor last Thursday afternoon and the left leg injury is not that serious thankfully. The doctor said the injury would be healed in two to four weeks easily. So thankfully I won’t be needing surgery on this left leg… that’s definitely a big sigh of relief for sure.

The doctor recommended that I go to Physical Therapy and I will do that next week. So back to no lower body lifting at all. I want the injury gone completely and gone forever so I can go back to my powerlifting training for the lower body. It’s holding back my powerlifting training and it’s not good.

I also want the left leg injury gone so I can feel good walking and standing for a long time ’cause I shouldn’t be feeling that.

I took a couple of months off of no longer body lifting hoping it will heal on its own but since it didn’t, I could no longer ignore it and finally decided to see a doctor about it. Glad he recommended Physical Therapy. Physical Therapists are smart and they know their stuff. They can probably fix me up real fast and the injury will be gone quick before you know it hopefully.

I want to get back to big deadlifting ’cause I love deadlifting. Doing deadlifts is my favorite lift and workout of them all. This injury is holding back my deadlift numbers but thankfully, I haven’t lost any deadlift strength. Just last week, I smashed an easy 280 lb. single so I believe I still have the 300 lb. deadlift pr. Haven’t lost it at all and still got it. If you take time off due to an injury you won’t lose strength right away so nothing to worry about.

I’ll get back to big deadlifting very soon, hopefully in March. I need to get back to serious squatting so I can improve my numbers on that too. I want to get back to strength training for powerlifting but gotta get rid of this leg injury.

I’ve gotten back into heavy bench pressing again ’cause my upper body is all good. I’m pretty clear of injuries on the upper body so for now I’ll just do upper body work in the gym only for the time being. I haven’t lost bench strength either as I still got that too.

Soon I’ll get back into deadlifting and squatting again, very soon.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Tnation article: 6 Gym villains you love to hate…

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Earlier today, I just read this entertaining T-nation article and it’s a good read. I agree with it all and have seen it all at public gyms over the years. Yeah, going to a public gym maybe a lot of fun and you go there to have fun and get a good workout in but sometimes the gym makes you want to hate people… seriously.

For those who are too lazy to read articles but read titles only… here are the 6 Gym Villains this article wrote about…:

  1. Fake MMA Guy
  2. Locker Room Selfie Guy
  3. Weight-belt fashion statement guy
  4. Half Repping Noisy Guy
  5. The Talker
  6. Girl Who Doesn’t Want Attention But Really Does

https://www.t-nation.com/opinion/6-gym-villains-you-love-to-hate?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article8746&fbclid=IwAR3oiaDmMya9hB_uyiiu-cR32QgZk496Pyb5W4W3JB4c58pfwj-ImzqvYYY

Yup, I have seen it all except… I am guilty at taking locker room selfies of myself before but I try not to do it too much. I don’t think I’ll do it anymore.

As for the fake MMA guy goes, you see it all the time… this guy who uses a commercial gym instead of a more appropriate MMA styled gym which are all over America. The same goes for boxers too, they don’t need to be using a public gym to go all over the place. I’ve seen fake MMA fighters/boxers shadowboxing with dumbbells before and it’s funny. I’ve also seen fake fighters fighting by himself in front of a mirror a lot. It’s funny to see really. They also do all these weird workouts like bench steppers, arm band stuff, box jumping and all that crap. Really? Go find a boxing gym to do all that stuff with ’cause they are all over the place. Now that MMA is legal in NY State, I’m sure there are MMA schools all over.

As for the weightbelt wearing guy, I’ve seen other guys wear that for every workout. It’s okay to wear a weightbelt for deadlifting and squatting, yes but wearing a belt throughout the day? Lmao!!!!

As for the Half-Repping Noisy Guy, I’ve seen that all the time as well. I’ve seen meatheads trying to lift heavy weights with half-assed range of motion and they’re grunting and sometimes screaming. It’s a big problem at the gym I go to, I see it all the time, it’s laughable.

The Talker pisses me off too… at every gym you go to there will always be this chatty person who talks to everybody and they will talk to each other for hours and hours between their sets. Not good for the body and muscles. When I go to the gym, I’m always listening to music with earphones on so I can give people a hint to leave me alone but of course, someone always tries to chat me up. It’s freakin’ annoying.

Now the girl who doesn’t want attention but really does, yes, that is a problem with women absolutely. Women pretend to not want attention at gyms by wearing a ballcap pull down to cover their face, listening to music to give men a hint to leave them alone but their gym attire sometimes, though… they wear things that show too much skin and even cleavage… when in-shape women look like this you can’t help but check her out and I’m guilty of this sometimes… checking out the good looking women with toned bodies…. how can you not want to look away? Of course they want attention with the guys, don’t let ’em fool ya’.

I thought this was a great article and thought I would share.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Leg injury is getting way better now that I stopped the lower body lifting for a long long while…

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I guess I might not need a doctor after all ’cause my upper left leg injury (or the hip flexor is what they call it) is feeling way better lately since I’ve giving my legs a much longer break. I’ve taken two months off of lower body lifting and no deadlifting at all whatsoever. I’m not 100% yet but pretty close to it. I may be able to get back to lower body lifting again real soon. I should give it a few more weeks, maybe I don’t know.

My left leg is feeling good, though. Maybe I can go back to doing legs again, just lift light ’cause light lifting is not gonna hurt it. I could probably go back to doing legs and deadlifting again but lift real light. I’ll give it a shot.

I may have  lost some muscle on the legs due to no lifting but I’ll get it all back once I’m 100%. I might have lost some deadlift strength “again” and probably can’t lift the 300 lb. deadlift anymore but I’ll get that back as well. We’ll see how it goes.

I do miss the heavy deadlifting and I want to get back into that pretty badly ’cause I love the deadlift. It’s my favorite lift out of everything I do. I’ll never give up the deadlift. When I get back from injury, I’m gonna be training harder than ever and hope to get my 300 lb. deadlift back. My goal this year in 2020 is hopefully hit pr’s on deadlift that are over 300 lbs. I hope to do 300 lbs. for reps pretty soon. I’m gonna work my way up to a 400 lb. pr on deadlift this year but first I gotta get healed up from this injury.

Injury setbacks suck. Injuries can take forever to heal depending on how bad it is. I guess this injury was pretty good since it’s taking me more than two months to heal but it’s gotten way better now, though.

I don’t blame deadlifting and squatting for this injury. I got it from the leg press which is what I don’t like and I’ll probably end up ditching the leg press from my program completely, not sure yet. I probably won’t do leg press anymore. To workout my quads, I’ll probably just do the leg ext. machine and do barbell squats. I could also probably workout the legs doing stuff with dumbbells like Goblet Squats or Lunges… I’ll probably end up doing that instead of the leg press.

I don’t want to get injured like this again and I’ll be more careful next time.

I’ve been going to the gym 3 days a week for a while now. Skipping leg days for two months. I’m gonna go back to 4 days a week soon. I might go back to 4 days this week. Do leg day this week but go in lightly.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Went to the gym for leg day earlier today but didn’t go too crazy on heavy lifting for squats… felt pretty good…

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Yeah, I ended up going back to the gym earlier today after all and trained the quads today after all. I had my squat session but didn’t go super heavy for this session. I only kept the weight numbers between 85 0 120 lbs. on squats.

I’m squatting with the right depth that the USAPL asks for. Ya know, all powerlifting federations have different definition of squat depth but the USAPL wants the “hip crease joint to go lower than the top of the knees” which is pretty freakin’ deep… kind of like ass to the grass squats almost. It feels wicked deep to me ’cause I’m a short guy. I’m 5 foot 5. I’m finally learning to squat with the right depth and it’s feeling good really. USAPL depth feels wicked heavy, though… holy shit… getting the hang of squats more and it’s growing on me.

Feels good to get back in the gym again. Gonna do back day tomorrow and try deadlifting to see how that goes. I miss the deadlifting. Want to get back into that too. Do I still have my 300 lb. deadlift? Not sure and I’ll give it a shot!

Kev

Health and Fitness

Leg injury update: it’s actually feeling a lot better this week… not quite 100%, I’d say about 95% better…

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Like the title says, my upper left leg injury is getting a lot better. Not quite yet but getting there. I took like 3 weeks off of lower body lifting completely and that seems to have helped a lot. I might be good enough to get back into lower body lifting this week, but I think it’s a good idea to start off light, we’ll see.

My left shoulder has gotten a lot better too so all of this is getting good.

I knew I never needed a doctor ’cause I knew these would be pretty healable. Remember, when you’re hurting whatever bodypart is injured, you gotta stop exercising that body part completely so it can heal faster. Training that injured body part is not going to make the injury go away.

I’m feeling real good now. I took two weeks off from the gym completely so that really helped a lot. I’m probably gonna get back to the gym this week but I’ll probably lift everything real light, we’ll see.

Who knows, I may be good enough to get back into heavy lifting again. I really want to get back into heavy lifting ’cause it’s holding back my powerlifting numbers. I’m feeling real good now, though better than I was before.

I’ve had minor injuries like this in the past and I learned that the only way to get rid of injuries faster is to stop training. You might lose muscle or a little strength and sometimes you get even more strength when coming back from an injury. Usually many lifters come back stronger in the gym after taking time off from the gym due to an injury so you shouldn’t be worried about losing strength.

Hopefully I still have my 300 lb. deadlift. I smashed a 300 lb. deadlift single in the past a couple of times and who knows, I could do it again. I’ll wait to do leg day and back day on the weekend to give more time for this injury to heal all the way.

I’m gonna go to the gym for chest day tomorrow. I miss the weight room… I hate staying out of it. I hardly ever take time off from the gym but it’s usually ’cause I’m either injured or not feeling good or on vacation somewhere… back to the gym tomorrow.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Leg injury update, still got it a little bit but I can feel it going away though…

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Thought I would give you a little injury update on my left leg… since I took three weeks off of lower body lifting, I can feel the left leg getting better. Still not 100% yet but getting there. I don’t want to get back into lower body lifting again ’cause if I did, I would re-injure it and it would come back and that’s what I don’t want. I can’t go back to lower body lifting at all until it heals 100%. I predict that it could take a couple of more weeks to heal fully… maybe like 2 or 3 weeks, we’ll see how it goes. If it takes a whole month off to heal the injury all the way, I’ll take it.

My left shoulder is bothering me again a little bit so I guess no upper body lifting for a while as well, lmao. That means I gotta stay away from weightlifting altogether if I want my minor injuries to heal completely.

I know these injuries are going away ’cause I can feel them. Even though I can’t get back into weightlifting at all, I won’t stop going to the gym, though. I can go to the gym and just walk the treadmill for an hour but that’s about all I can do. I did end up taking a full week off of the gym last week so that helped a lot.

Like I said, it’s completely okay to take time off from the gym if you’re hurting ’cause that’s what you gotta do. I don’t think anything is torn ’cause if something was torn you would see some nasty discoloring and I don’t have any of that. I think these minor injuries are just a strain or a pull or something, nothing that bad. I want them gone forever so no lifting until they are gone. I’ll take a full month off or more than a month, whatever it takes.

Getting injuries suck as I have had them before and they do take forever to heal. Yeah, you may lose a little muscle and a little strength during recovery but like I said, don’t worry… you’ll get it all back pretty quick. I do miss the deadlifting already and I want to get back into it pretty badly but not until I’m 100%.

I don’t regret taking time off from the gym for these injuries, though ’cause it’s almost at the end of the year and it’s a good time to heal anyways ’cause once I do heal fully… I’m gonna get back into kicking ass in the gym in 2020.

When I look in the mirror, though… I couldn’t believe how big my arms and my shoulders are getting, though. Hate to brag about myself but my arms are getting impressive.

I’m getting better… just gotta stop lifting for a while longer. I know it sucks but that’s what I gotta do. I want to get back into strength training for powerlifting real soon but not right now. Hopefully I’ll be 100% in the month of Dec.

Kev