That's sort of what I was thinking. I've trained at 4 gyms, including one powerhouse and one gym that was one of those hardcore hole in the wall places, which I only left due to having to drive to far and the complete lack of air conditioning, which in Arizona is not cool. I've only seen a pretty small amount of people who can lift what pretty much everyone on this thread claims to be able to do. I could count the amount of guys I've seen hit 4 plates on a bench with perfect form, or even close to 5 with full squats, on one hand. When I read this thread, I'm thinking well what does a squat mean to these people, is it half way down or ass to the grass as it should be, and do they bounce the shit out of the bar off their chest when they bench it.
As for me.
23 years old
6 feet tall, 225 pounds give or take a few, legs are behind upper body but catching up. Most people who see me in the gym with a tank or without a shirt guess 245-250. So my upper body is bigger, but I pretty much neglected legs for the first two years so they're that much behind. If I could figure out how to scan pics I would love to post them.
BF=pretty low, I'm naturally lean, probably 8-10%.
Maxes.
Deads= I've hit 5 plates and a quarter for 2, which is 545. So maybe a little more for a single. 560 or something like that. I deadlift traditional only, no sumo for me.
Squat= Well, a squat to me is medium or narrow stance, high bar, ass to floor, I don't like the traditional powerlifting squat. Because I'm a bb'er and squat this way, I don't really think that poundages can be equated to what powerlifters lift, or what I could lift if I used a wide, toes out stance and put a lot of hips and ass into it. I've never maxed but I'm doing a fairly high volume of sets right now with a medium or close stance and heels slightly elevated, and I got 3x8 today with 355, ass to the grass. I would say low 400's for a max, maybe like 435 or something like that if I used a belt, but with the OL form as I described above.
Bench= I fucking suck at chest exercises, I'm relatively very weak for my size. I'm hoping that once a get a good chiro, I can once again feel like my left side is doing an equal amount of pushing. My chest is a weak point, triceps, shoulders, and back are big though. I am the opposite of a lot of people, especially powerlifters, who really need to focus on triceps strength. My triceps are stronger than my chest, which is why I get stuck at the beginning or middle, the lockout is always easy if I can get it that far. I mainly do inclines or declines with a bar, never flat barbell. I'm thinking 330 maybe 340 or so decline if I got lucky, and 300-305 incline if I really wanted to. Working sets on decline last week were 4x6 with 285 for all sets. I was happy with that.
I'm strong as shit on bent rows, and I do them the way JS described, which will definitely take some weight of the bar for sure compared to something like the dorian yates or ronnie coleman way of doing rows. I'll get 315 for several sets of 8-10 right now, with perfect JS form. I think this and the deadlifts are why my back is so damn big, if I could only use this weight for chest exercises, I'd be a happy guy.
I also do tibia raises on the standing calf machine and I can throw on a good amount of the stack for high reps. Beat that bitches.
I've never really done Olympic lifts, a few hang cleans, but I always end up getting wrist pains and say screw it.
Overall, I've realized that my posterior chain is really strong, but my pushing muscles like chest and quads are not as good.
Turbo1 said:
IF all these lifts are real then I'm really starting to think I dont belong here. WOW!!! I"m walking away now, I'll check back when i can bench half what u guys do!!!
