3-23-14 – Deadlifting Away From Home

For the first time in my entire life, I had a full, serious day of working out at a gym not being HPF. Jesse’s friend, Matt, lives out in Cedar Lake and he hasn’t seen him in a few years. So why not meet him at the gym and deadlift up to a three rep max. We departed from Jesse’s house around 11:30 am towards Fuel Fitness in Cedar Lake. Fortunately for me, I was pulled over in the process and was given a ticket. But, I just thought of it as a mental test to see how focused and ready I was to deadlift heavy weight not at home. We arrived at Fuel, signed up for a day pass, checked the place out, drank our pre-workout and awaited the arrival of Matt. As soon as he arrived, we headed straight to the deadlift platform that had and began loading the rubber on the bar (yeah, I said rubber, not iron). Warm-ups felt lighter than they usually do which gave me great confidence working into my three rep maxes. The bar they had there was a lot thicker and slicker than the bars we have at home, but thanks to one extremely generous man, he loaned us some chalk that he had snuck in. Without that man’s chalk, none of the lifts would have ever been possible. I worked up to what would have been my AMAP (95% at 305 lbs.) and hit it for an easy three reps. After that, I moved up to five pounds over my training max (320), and just fifteen pounds below my previous max of 340. I mentally prepared myself just as if it was a meet and the only thought racing through my brain was that there are only 61 days remaining until the next meet. I walked up to the bar, let the music that they had playing take control of me, and set up for what was a somewhat difficult three reps. Unlike a few of my previous working sets, my form was a lot better on this final set of three at 325 pounds. I can confidently say that I would’ve moved up to 330 pounds and hit it for three reps as well, but I was on a time limit today due to me having work at 6. Matt, Jesse, and I moved through whatever accessories that we could from HPF, and found many, great alternatives to the ones we couldn’t do. We passed on several pieces of advice to other members that were attending Fuel that day, and got to meet some really nice people. Overall, it was a very, very good day of deadlifting and I look forward to working with Matt again, this time at home. When I got home, I showered, changed and went straight to work only to find out that I didn’t need to work that day. So, instead, I took advantage of this only opportunity of free time that I’ve had in weeks to write all of my training logs. Today I realized what I take advantage of at HPF, what an incredible gym it really is and just how much it really has to offer. HPF has an unmatched level of energy that you cannot get anywhere else in the world. Progress is always infinite.