Best Lifts

2016-12-18

My all-time bests: 565 deadlift, 405 (four-plate) squat, 250 bench, 185 overhead press.

565 lb deadlift (Jun 2015)

Probably should have hit six plates that day. Bench, meanwhile, was all I had — 250 was the ceiling.

Four-plate squat (Dec 2016)

This was my first attempt at a heavy single since summer 2015, although to be fair I was only lifting for half of it! Got an easy 4 plates with what felt like perfect form! Unfortunately, on the very next set at 365, I tweaked my back and had to call it a day. :(

That one was easy. The back tweak on the follow-up set was the price.

20-rep squats at bodyweight

Sets of 20 with 215 on the bar at 215 bodyweight — something like 72 total reps across 10 minutes. The footage: the 10-minute bodyweight squat challenge (55 min, Dec 2015) — “as many squats as you can in 10 minutes with a bodyweight barbell on your back, right after Christmas too when we’re all fat and lazy.”

The arc behind these: my first lifting meet (2014) — 225 bench, 515 deadlift, 365 squat off to the side — and strongest at 209 lbs.