Heavy Things

On Monday I went to the gym to lift weights with my lifting buddy, Sharon.  She and I lift almost the same weight, so it's really easy to lift together.  This week is week one of the schedule we follow.  We have a certain weight that is our estimated maximum amount that we could lift.  Then over the course of 3 weeks we lift progressively larger percentages of that weight, take a 4th week to de-load (take a break from those particular lifts) then move our numbers up and start over with week one.  Sometimes I'm not ready to move up.  Like with my overhead press.  I haven't moved that number up in the last 3 rounds.  But my deadlift numbers have kept going up, and that is pretty exciting to me. 

When I first started weight lifting, about a year ago, my max for deadlift was 155 pounds.  This week I moved up to 210 pounds, which means I actually did 5 repetitions at 135 lbs., 5 more at 160 lbs., and was then able to do 9 reps at 180 lbs.  Next week my final lift will be at 190 lbs. and the week after that will be 200 lbs. 

I'm actually going to take a break from this lifting program after these three weeks, but I will keep lifting once a week.  I want to keep myself in the habit.  It gives me a lot of satisfaction to be able to lift something so heavy and do it without hurting myself.    I like feeling strong!