After 3 weeks of going back to the basics and focusing on increasing strength for the 3 big lifts, I finally stalled on my deadlifts (155 lbs), and was approaching stalling on my bench press (around 100 lbs) as well.  My squats didn’t seem close to maxing out at 160lbs–old logs have shown I’ve gone 200+ for bb squats before–so it would have been nice to see where my max is for that.  I’ve been wavering back and forth as to what to do once I hit this wall– either continue trying to improve sheer strength, or go back to kettlebell training, which has a huge metabolic training component to it.

I’ve decided just to go back and doing Lean & Lovely Phase 3 and do it without any modifications.  I think it’s more my style.  I used to so straight-up heavy lifting with my friend Lake a few years ago, and I remember being very antsy since it didn’t feel like I was *doing* anything during my workouts.  Yes, it’s hard to do lifts when you can only eek out 3-5 reps, and yes, it’s pretty cool to see such big numbers in my training log.  But it just doesn’t feel like very much!  I think I like the higher density training of supersets etc even if it’s higher reps and the numbers aren’t as impressive.

In any case, I had bought the L&L program along with a companion program, Super Heroine Fitness, which was designed to be done after completing L&L.  So I think I want to finish those plans before jumping ship and doing something else instead!  I took a closer look at the SuperHeroine training program, and it does include some HEAVY lifting– sets of 12×3 for Deadlifts, 8×4 of Squats, and 6×6 of Bench Press.

If I finish up the L&L and SHF programs as they’re designed, that would take me through June.  From there, I can re-assess my goals and decide on a course of action.

Reflections of Gratitude

I’m grateful to have found such a strong interest in improving my health and fitness.  Even if I’m not always that great at following through, it definitely helps that I WANT to workout more, eat cleaner, and keep improving.  There are definitely worse  problems to have than that there being so many workout plans I want to follow that it’s hard to stick to one!  Plus, life is long, so I’m sure if I keep plugging away, maybe someday I’ll be able to do all of them!

Also grateful to have the opportunity to register for a major triathlon for free today, due to a generous donation.  I hadn’t had any races planned this season, but now that I’m registered, hopefully this will give me more focus.  The race is at the end of August, so if the SHF training takes me through June, then I can spend the summer focusing on endurance training.