2013 Weight Crushing Goals

I was sitting around recently pondering my own mortality, as I'm wont to do, and I realized that I'm going to be 29 years old in November.  That's one shy of 30.  I can remember being in high school and having absolutely no concept of being 30 and only a smidgen of confidence that I'd even make it there.  I always imagined myself jumping off a really tall building onto a police car with the siren and lights on full blast.  After the impact the last thing I would hear would be the siren slowly dying away.  A nice little poetic dichotomy.

Drawing that scenario was an actual exercise I did in a college English class but things have since changed.  Instead of going out in a blaze of glory and wasting any potential I want to take this year and let my health and vitality really flourish.  I want my body to be as badass and bulletproof as I can make it.  So with that I came up with a few lifting challenges that I'm going to attempt during the week leading up to my birthday, November 9th.  I'm not sure what order I'm going to do them in but these are going to take some game planning.  In no particular order I present to you...

THE HOMETOWN HE-MAN CRUSHATORIUM 

PRESENTS: 

THE TROY DEQUAINE BIRTHDAY WEEK LIFTING DEMONSTRATION SPECTACULAR!

Demonstration #1:

Overhead Press: 200 x 1

Bench Press: 300 x 1

Front Squat: 400 x 1

Back Squat: 500 x 1

Dead Lift: 600 x 1

I'm going to do all of those lifts within one session.  If I did them today the first three would be PRs.  And I'm not sure I'm at the point where I could do the last two.  Getting strong enough to be able to complete these lifts individually won't be the problem.  It's going to be doing them back to back within a short period of time.

Demonstration #2:

The Martin Rooney Mantathlon

You can follow the link and read up on the specifics but here is the gist of it:

• Body weight bench press for reps
• Body weight chin ups for reps
• Half body weight overhead press for reps
• 1.25 body weight dips for reps
• Half body weight barbell curls for reps

All of that must be completed in 20 minutes.  Your total number of reps determines your status from "low man on the totem pole" all the way up to "man of war".  I don't really care about Martin Rooney's classifications, I just want to be better than as many people as possible.

I'm not crazy about the fact that there are no lower body drills in this since we all know that guys that have big upper bodies and chicken legs are some of the most ridiculous looking people in the world.  Sometimes it's hard to recognize them since they all wear pants to cover it up but they are out there.

See what I'm talking about?

Demonstration #3:

Dead lift 500 pounds 29 times.

Not in a row.  Just get it done 29 times within a limited amount of time, probably an hour or so.

I'm turning 29 and dead lifting 500 pounds is a huge milestone to lifters of any age.  I want to blast the shit out of said milestone.  I want to show people who are of average build and genetics like me what is possible.  People have a tendency to say, "that'll never be me" or "yeah, but he's got great genetics".  Bully.  When I hear that I hear, "I don't want to put in the work to be able to do it."  If people see what's possible they have no reason other than a lack of "want to".

Now that I think about it I'll probably being doing all of these demos in a singlet.

So there you have it.  My training and recovery is going to have to be on point from now up until that week.  Scheduling of the weeks leading up to and the week itself is also going to play a big role in how I go about it.  I'm thinking at some point over the summer I'll do a dry run of each demonstration to see how each demonstration affects me.  I'll also be able to see where I need some work and see where I could perhaps coast some.  

I'm pretty pumped about these demonstrations.  I now have a tangible goal with my training instead of just some fluid ideas floating around.  Time to get away from the keyboard and get my ass to work.