AMRAP 15 Min:
1 Rope Climb
3 Wall Walk
10 KB Swing 53/35
I had a big personal victory yesterday with this here 500# deadlift. When I started CrossFit back in late ’07, I could barely deadlift 300#. When I did hit 300, it probably wasn’t all that safe as I had very limited knowledge of how to perform the lift properly. I actually did hurt myself with a hand full of 275# deadlifts in a WOD back then.
Pretty quickly, I’d say within the first few months, I got better at doing the lift more safely, and got up to around 365 for a max. Of course 400 naturally became the goal. It took about a year and a half, but 400 eventually did come up off the floor, then 420 in the ’09 CrossFit Games. Yes I actually was in the games back then before the Rich Froning and Dan Baileys took over. I was stuck at 420 for a long time, maybe 2 years. Some days I couldn’t even get 400, but once I had gotten 400 and seen a few other CrossFitters were up over 500, I couldn’t settle for anything less than 5 bills. There was a big problem though in that I was barely able to get out of bed the day after heavy deadlifts and was suffering with some pretty bad low back pain. Two years ago I found myself frustrated and I began to question if I should keep trying to increase my deadlift, or just forget about my 500 dream, after all I would need my low back for many other things that weren’t related to CrossFit.
Two years ago, I was still struggling with pain associated with deadlifts, and I decided to see if we could get the CrossFit Powerlifting seminar hosted here at the gym, which we did. At the seminar, I could barely deadlift due to my back pain. I did find that I could successfully box squat without aggravating the back, so I worked hard on the squat, and I got me a coach.
This year is my third off-season working with Mark Bell at Super Training and following a modified Westside lifting program. I say modified because I leave out or modify the upper body days and add in some GPP work to keep my conditioning level and gymnastics from disappearing all together. Anyhow Mark was able to change the way I set up for my deadlifts and get my low back much stronger than before. After the first off season over there I managed to pull 455, but the best part is that my back no longer hurt after heavy days. I dealt with the lat tear and surgery, which made deadlifting impossible for that entire off-season, but when I got back to it, was able to get back to my old PR quickly and up to a new PR of 475 a couple months ago. Then yesterday, a 485 and 500lb’er. Boom.
The point is, never give up. Always learn more, always work harder. When you can’t do this, do that. Set small goals and celebrate every PR no matter how small. Keep a positive attitude, troubleshoot injuries, listen to your coaches, and all of those tiny PR’s eventually add up to something really significant. Maybe even something you thought was impossible. Then when you get that huge all time goal remember this, it isn’t the end, it’s just a new beginning. Is 600 too much? Only time will tell, but 500 is now yesterday’s news.
