Deadlift Redemption

10 months ago I experienced an injury.  I was in the gym deadlifting when at the end of my last set I felt a twinge in the left side of my lower back. A few hours later I was in intense pain and had to go home and lie down. Little did I know I'd have to rebuild my entire range of motion in my lower back. Things like sitting down to tie my shoes were impossible. Over the next 2 months I started stretching and getting back into light lifting. My back began to feel better. But still I avoided deadlifting until summer of this year. I began working with a coach to help me. We fixed my form and progressed weight slowly as I began to feel more comfortable with it again. Things went well for the most part, my persistently angry left hamstring made things challenging at times but we've been working on alot of hamstring and glute strengthening. I have learned much.

After 3 months of deadlifting I was at the week of my 30th birthday which could only mean one thing - PR week!

Here I am on Friday staring down these deadlifts again. On my 29th birthday I got a 205lb deadlift. One year later, after having to rebuild myself back from negative nothing, what could I get? I know I could get more than 205 because I have been doing sets of 4-5 reps at 195. So I warmed up, belted up, and put 205 on the bar. Easy. Up to 215. Still easy. So now up to 225 which was kind of my soft goal, seeing as how I squatted that on Wednesday. I wanna be able to at least deadlift the same amount if not more. Daniel got the camera out for some video. 225 happened... so now the question was, go for 235? Let's do it. Wiggle into position, grip the bar... deep breath, squeeze glutes and lats... and this was one slow, ugly mofo of a lift but it happened. But of course, Daniel didnt' get it on video cause his hand was in the way or something. And you know video makes everything official so I had to do it again :)  I set up and got it a few inches off the ground, it wasn't happening again. So it appears right now 235 is my 1RM. And I'm fine with that. This is my worst lift and I am basically starting over with it, so this is good for right now. I know where I'm at and I can start working my way up to 250+ from here.

It feels good to be deadlifting again. It's still hard as hell. It freaking wears me out every time. And I know it's never gonna get any easier... but I'll get better