The other day Jacob Hiller (creator of
Jump Manual) asked me, "are you getting stronger?" I couldn't confidently answer yes or no because I hadn't tested my max on lifts in a really long time.
So, yesterday I decided to max out on squats, deadlifts, hang cleans, bench press, and pullups. I'll repeat this test again following my next round of training to see how much I've improved.
Here were the results:
I'm going to count this as my new PR even though I probably should have gotten a little lower for it to be a true squat. I've been working on my flexibility and technique and it's helping but getting low is really challenging for me. Even when I do much lighter weight I have a hard time getting down to parallel. Here's a video if you want to check it out.
I'm pretty sure this is a new PR for me as I don't remember lifting more than this and looking back at my tracking sheets, I couldn't find anything higher. Here's the video:
This is not a PR for me. I've done 170 lbs for 4 reps before. My right wrist was hurting and I was probably a little fatigued from doing squats and deadlifts so I still feel pretty good about getting 165 lbs. I don't have a video for this one.
This is really embarrassing! I don't bench anymore so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I know about 12 years ago my best ever on bench press was 225 lbs x 3 reps. I've clearly lost a lot of upper body strength since then and I've definitely got to hit my upper body harder. This is why you need to evaluate your strength and see where you need work. I don't have a video of this and wouldn't show it to you if I did! :-)
- Pullups: 1 rep with 50 lb weight
I thought about testing how many total pullups I could do but figured that has more to do with endurance and I was already pretty tired by this point. I thought a better test would be to see how much extra weight I could do for 1 rep. I started with a 30 lb dumbbell between my knees and did it easy. Went up to a 40 lb dumbbell and was still able to complete. I then went for 50 lbs and barely got 1 full rep so that will be my new PR. I have never maxed out on this before. Very curious to see how high I can go on this in the future. No video for this one either.
So since Jacob asked me...now I will ask you! Are you getting stronger? How do you know? Can you prove it? What are your 1 rep max lifts? If you don't know, time to get in the gym and find out. Tracking is critical to your success!
