A Numbers Game

One of the things I like most about weight training is that the performance metrics are simple and built-in - it's all a numbers game, with weight and reps the core values that can be supplemented by speed (either subjectively by feel or using the likes of an app to assess velocity). Unless you are actually competing, then comparing these metrics against others is rarely productive - inflating or crushing your ego should not be the purpose, rather monitoring your own progress to ensure the time and effort you're committing is paying dividends is wholly worthwhile, as sometimes re-evaluating and making adjustments is required to make the most out of what you put in.

Last week I hit a new overhead press PR of 70kg (154lbs/11st), and even though my deadlift is ~2.75x heavier, this actually means a bit more to me, for a few reasons:

• I have absolutely horrible shoulder mobility, in that when I first started this movement, I really struggled to simply raise my hands above my head - say maybe 10-15 degrees off vertical. I attribute this to a combination of breaking my collarbone as a teenager and the 30+ years hunched over a keyboard since. My "hack" to counter this limitation has been to push the barbell up a wall, which allows me to lean into the movement and get my arms almost fully vertical. Recently this has felt a lot more free, so I'm actually going to lower the weight and start building back up again without the wall, using video tracking on how vertical I can maintain this. I've been through similar mobility issues with the squat and deadlift, and all the foam rolling and stretching doesn't make a dent - best way of teaching your body to get into a position, is by trying to get into that position, over and over again (and years of it in my case).
• Shortly after I began training, I put the big-boy 20kg plates on for my first 60kg squat, and I un-racked the bar and held the weight in my hands over my chest - and it indelibly marked my mind with how utterly heavy it felt and the despairing reality of being incapable of moving it against gravity for a solitary millimetre, never mind fully overhead. Following this single 70kg, was 62.5kg for a set of 5 - and my mind flashed back to that 60kg moment, and I shook my head in disbelief and grinned at the impossible becoming the normal.
• I was 48hrs into a break-through case of covid, and was pretty sick by the next day - squats before this were below par, so I was definitively starting to feel the effect. Feeling much better now, and have earmarked Monday for a return to lifting.

Reversing my high-blood pressure following my weight loss and becoming active really made me sit-up and marvel at how the human body adapts, but there's something more tangible with this stuff - you literally feel it in your hands, and there's great satisfaction in doing something with ease that was previously a struggle. When you start weight training you pretty much begin with an empty barbell (a bit of a misnomer as a 7ft 20kg barbell isn't nothing) and incrementally add weight each workout (this linear progression can last for 6mths or so). The following table is the main lifts and when I first failed at them - only getting 4 reps out of the target of 5. These failure numbers are then expressed as an estimated 1 rep max (e1RM) (you don't perform singles when you start out), and can be compared against my current actual 1 rep max (1RM) and my estimated 1RM based on my current training (maybe 3 or 4 times a year I do all-out max singles):

Those failure weights are now warmup weights performed without blinking. Could I have done better in the 5yrs I've been doing this? For sure, but making mistakes is all part of the fun of learning, and I'm curious to see how that table looks in the next 5yrs, and the 5yrs after that - I'm expecting many more observations corroborating my position that the human body is indeed nuts!