Thanks

If you look at the first one, you can see I started the lift with my head down, which led to it being a little slow off the ground. The second one is harder to see from that angle, but it does look like my body was shifted a little more forward than what is optimal.

yeah, 722 seems like a long ways away. I'm going to keep 683 as the goal for my next meet for now. I'd guess if I had a meet next week and everything went right, I could get somewhere between 665 - 685.

That seems like a reasonable assessment to me. I mean, I am willing to officially say based on my depth of experience with geared lifting and having just watched those videos a couple of times, 700 is not a pipe dream whether or not you get 722 or "only" ~683 at your next meet, .

As of right now, I'd be happy with 683 at my next meet (June 13). I'd love to bust 700 vs Team Lillebridge in August.

4/1

speed bench
45x15
95x10
135x10x2
185x6
225x4
275x3
285x3x7

push ups
12
added small band 12
added medium band 12
added large band 12x2

cable rows
high rep tricep pushdowns
face pulls

4/3

I feel like ****. I have a cold or something and have been coughing and blowing my nose all day. I went to the gym wondering if I would be able to squat as heavy as my prescribed work sets. lol.

squat
60x5x2
150x5x2
240x5
290x3
330x2

put on briefs
420x1

put on suit (way too tight)
470x 1/4. It felt like I hit a wall a quarter of the way down.

loosened straps
510x1 ez
I talked to Priest and said I felt like I should try some heavy singles. He thought that was a good idea, and suggested I jump right to 600.

600x1 PR + 40
Holy ****. It felt like my lungs were going to explode, but once I hit the bottom, this went up fast. So fast, that Priest suggested I try 700. This looks a lot easier than it felt:



700, lolno. I took it out of the rack, and it made my upper back feel bad as soon as I started to descend, so I reracked it right away. Priest says I have the strength to squat 700 if I get used to handling that kind of weight on my back and use good form. He says my training goal should be 705, based on how the 600 looked to him. He says the next couple weeks I should try and put 700 on my back again a few times to get used to it.

I didnt do anything else after this because I was coughing and I dont think doing anything would have been beneficial at that point.

lookin good cha, strong. one non-trolling question. why do obese people GAF about the gym?

it's the equivalent of me staying 6'4'' 311 but just trying to get really strong. it makes no sense to me. unless i was going to try to make my run at the NFL, at 31.

Thanks.

I assume you're referring to a couple of my spotters in the video? If so, the short guy on my left squats ~1100 & benches > 700. The tall guy on my right squatted 940 in basically a singlet ~20 years ago and is getting close to that again after a 20 year layoff. They enjoy competing (because its fun) and being strong (because its awesome) and dont GAF about how they look.

and this:

well said. rippetoe quote was funny.

Sick squat dude!

At first I thought I was watching a non-cha squat video, couldn't recognize you.

That squat went up so fast though

thanks!

thanks!

Nice work Cha. Did Priest say why he wanted you to go straight to 700 instead of trying 650 or something like that first. Jumping up 16 or so percent seems crazy when it is something you've never had on your back before

There's going to be a UPA meet here in town May 16. I sent in my entry for it.

My meets that I'm planning as of right now:
UPA 5/16
USPA state championship 6/13
UPA team meet in Iowa 8/2-8/3 vs Team Lillebridge and some others. This is the big one for my team.

thanks!

He believes in overloading in certain situations. He wants me to get used to handling 700 asap because he thinks I will be able to squat it fairly soon once I get used to it. I dont know much more than that, but I see him and Jay (the short stocky spotter on my left in the video) squat 800, then 900, then 1000 pretty frequently. Maybe he wanted me to try the 700 without expending tons of energy on 650.

edit: More thoughts on this. He mentioned to me a few weeks ago that at some point the light was going to click on in my head and I was going to make a huge jump in weight. The way that 600 went up, he probably thought that had happened and I had a reasonable chance of actually squatting it. It did kind of happen (40 lb PR is pretty awesome), but I wasnt prepared for how heavy the 700 felt on my back yet.

He was definitely talking about your spotters. You haven't looked leaner.

And yeah...fat and weak or super strong and fat...easy choice there I think.

Great work ITT. You are exactly where you should be in that gym.

On thing, cautionary note, I would take it a little slower. Muscle will make huge gains but tendons, ligaments, discs, and bones will take longer to catch up. You may want to consider that as you progress...

Again, awesome work. Inspiring.

Thanks!!

Typically, I do take things slow and safe. I trust Priest with regards to his suggestions though. If anything at all went bad on either the 600 or the 700, I had great, super strong spotters. As a matter of fact, for the 700, I had five spotters instead of three, which is pretty typical when we have anyone doing that much weight on the bench or squatting. I think if Priest had seen anything that suggested I wasnt ready to try the 700, he would have suggested less or shut me down. He never has a problem when I say I need to shut it down, and he frequently tells others to shut it down when that is appropriate.

Goals as of right now:
UPA May meet - national records for bench (> 402, ez), DL (> 540, lolez) and total ( > 1670). The squat record is 727. That seems way out of reach for a while.

USPA meet in June - Minimum total to qualify for IPL worlds - 1637 (definitely in my wheelhouse, and this is my primary goal at this meet). National record for DL ( > 600.75). The national records for squat (733.03), bench (600.75) and total (1934.54) appear to be way out of reach for a while.

UPA team meet in August - whatever it takes for my team to win

IPL worlds in November - There are no world records for 50-54 years old, 242.5 lb class, multiply yet. The minimums to qualify: squat 710.99 (outside chance by then); bench 501.55 (I think I'll get that); DL 567.69 (lolez - my opener raw would be more than that).


I've been sick so I didnt lift Sunday and I probably wont lift tonight, but might do something if I feel a little better.

Ahh, I see why you switched to multi-ply now. Those records look pretty juicy, .

That isnt why I switched. I switched because I think its safer than lifting raw, and at my age, that matters. I know you might be trolling, but I want to be clear to anyone else reading this who might not realize that.

Don't worry, I will continue trolling .

are those really the multi-ply records? That seems insane.

All that strength stuff is pretty impressive, but what I want to know is if you can beat microbet in a barehanded raw egg crushing contest yet?

Again, those are the 50-54 records for those federations. There's less competition when you get older because avoiding injuries and recovering is a lot harder.

If you look at the list for "best of the best" on Powerliftingwatch.com, the all-time numbers for all federations are a lot more impressive. They include everyone over 40 years old. I'll need to DL 611 & total 1780 just to make the top 40.

The current best lifter list over 50 years old thins out a lot - I'll probably be able to hit top 6 in everything and I have a shot at #1 DL there (678 is best now).

lol, I'm up for the challenge anytime.

4/7

DL
235x5x3
325x4
415x2

put on briefs
505x1

put on suit
595x1
665xf

Everything was easy up until the last attempt. I felt weak from being sick at that point, so I shut it down after that. I feel a little better today than I did yesterday, so I think it was good to do a little work, but I'm glad I didnt push myself too hard.

4/8

Definitely still not 100% but feeling a bit better. Since I didnt bench heavy last Sunday and I have a new shirt to break in, I benched heavy.

45x15
95x10
135x10x2
185x6
225x4
275x3
315x2

put on single ply Katana
405x1

put on new two ply Inzer Rage X
two board press
495xf - I tucked my elbows too early and touched the weight way too low. It wasnt going anywhere.
495x1x2
I probably could have got a second rep out of both sets if I wasnt still a bit sick. On both of these, I held my elbows out farther initially on the descent and tucked my elbows as the bar got lower. This helped me keep my elbows under the bar, which gave me plenty of power out of the hole to lock these out. Touching to 2 boards was hard, but that's mostly because the shirt isnt anywhere close to being broken in yet. Getting the damn shirt on took like 15 minutes and a lot of pulling. This shirt is tighter on me than my others, even though its a bigger size. Two experienced lifters both said they thought I'd be able to touch to my chest with ~500 once the shirt is broken in.

Since I wasnt feeling great, I did no secondary pushing, and just did some accessory stuff.

two sets each:
cable rows
high rep tricep pushdowns
face pulls