deadlifted a traffic light

[turboseize]

Last autumn, our rowing society finally aquired a squat rack. So I got back into barbell training after a 5 or 6 year pause, during which I only trained with kettlebells and bodyweight. (I tend to avoid machines.) I set up a 5x5 program around squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, overhead presses and dips (which were later replaced by bench press, when I ran into shoulder probles doing weighted dips).

I started most exercises literally with the empty barbell, deadlift being the only exception - there it was 40kg. In the middle of october, I did a max test on deadlifts and stopped at 115kg. I might have pulled more, but I noticed my form deteriorating a bit so I decided to play it safe and stopped. Today I ended my 5x5 cycle with a deadlift of 145kg - for 5 or 6 reps with a similar borderline degree of sloppyness in my back like in that first max test. (I lost count and did one more rep, just in case... Will have to rewatch the video when my phone is charged again.) 
Why is 145kg called traffic light? Well, we have some small plates, several sets each ranging from 1.25 to 10kg. And then we have a selected few olympic-sized plates - 1 pair of 25kg (red), 1 pair of 20kg (blueish, but for all practical purposes to be considered green), and 2 pairs of 15kg (yellow). And in december, one of the guys jokingly asked "You DO want to build that traffic light, do you?" 
Well, today, I finally did. Red-yellow-bluegreen. Plus 2.5kg each side for the ancient collars. 

I am so relieved.. .the last two or three weeks were insane. I was constantly sore and tired, despite dropping back to 3x5 on the two main lifts and to only two workouts a week and eating and sleaping whenever the opportunity arose. Progress in the squat stalled, and in the OHP I even regressed a tiny bit in the last week... so I was definitely hard on the edge of overtraining . But deadlift weights still crept up... so I decided to just power through until I reached the traffic light. 
 1RM 115kg to 5RM 145kg... even though a flue took me down in November and had me pause for four weeks. So yes, I'll call that cycle successful. 5x5 works.
Also, the "rebound-effect" is real. You older guys getting back into weights... take your time. No need to rush it. Do not go "hmm, what did I squat the last time... I'll just take a bit weight off to account  for the detraining..." Don't do this.  You'll stall fast or even injure yourself. Been there, done that. Take your time and ease into it... you will get back.

Now I can't decide what to do next. Hypertrophy or strength endurance? The latter would benefit my sport more, the first ist more fun. (And more muscle is always better.) Decisions...
 

[Bookish Badger]

Congratulations!

[SpecialSundae]

That's a fricking awesome way to name it and congratulations!  

[WolfDreamer]

Well done, buddy.

 

[turboseize]

Here is the video:
 

 

Is that 5 or 6 reps? Not only do Ioose count while doing the exercise, I also can't seem to count when watching it on video... One, two, three... errr... many. 

As noted before, form is not so great... I might pull heavier, but I feel my lower back softening a bit over 140kg. Lower back was becoming a weak point here, but with low-bar squats and deadlifts every workout it surely got a beating during this cycle. 

[AugustaAdaByron]

Congratulations, Ampelmann!

[turboseize]

3 minutes ago, AugustaAdaByron said:

Congratulations, Ampelmann!

I'm in West-Berlin, the outpost of freedom! I don't wear a commie hat! 
 

[AugustaAdaByron]

2 minutes ago, turboseize said:

I'm in West-Berlin, the outpost of freedom! I don't wear a commie hat! 
 

 

 

But but but... the Ampelmann is a much more fun traffic light than the standard ones!

I'm very close to the border between East and West Berlin, on the Western part!  

[turboseize]

Soso... the stereotypical Kreuzberg Hipster, I suppose?
I'm in Charlottenburg Charlottengrad*... and the aforementioned boathouse is in Spandau. 



* Following the october revolution, the nobility and bourgeousy fled the russian empire. As a rule of thumb, the nobility and the artists went to Paris, and the merchants and businessmen went to Berlin. So in the 1920, Charlottenburg gained the nickname of Charlottengrad, because of all the (formerly) rich Russians flooding the cafés... After all, Charlottenburg was the richest town of Prussia. (Berlin, as we know it now, did not exist until 1920. There was a small Berlin, surrounded by a lot of independent cities, that merged into Groß-Berlin eventually. My Grandfather , born 1915, was very keen to point out he was not a Berliner, but a Charlottenburger.) Besides, there had always been strong connections between Prussia and Russia for centuries before - did you know that Alexanderplatz, for example, is named in honour of the russian tsar? If you are interested in prussian-russian relations, you'd perhaps want to visit Nikolskoje in the Grunewald and Alexandrowka in Potsdam...
Between the wars, but even after the second world war there remained a strong russian minority in Charlottenburg. My grandfather had actually dated a russian girl during the 30s... And after the war, his father in-law, my grand-grandfather, a former Wehrmacht general, somehow found he had mostly russian patients, as he was one of the rather few physicians in West-Berlin who spoke russian. (There were a lot of russian-speaking folks on the other side of the wall, but as his patients had fled the communist, they surely had no incentive to go there.) 
In the late 1990s the oligarchs and the newly-rich remembered Berlin, bought a lot of second homes near the Ku'damm and sparked a russian renaissance here - and the name Charlottengrad re-surfaced. We have russian ethnic food shops, russian and and georgian restaurants, galleries specialised in russian religious art... even bilinual russian-german kindergarten. My wife, by the way, hates Berlin but loves Charlottenburg. Guess what, she's from St. Petersburg...

[AugustaAdaByron]

21 minutes ago, turboseize said:

Soso... the stereotypical Kreuzberg Hipster, I suppose?

 

Never a hipster!

 

23 minutes ago, turboseize said:

* Following the october revolution, the nobility and bourgeousy fled the russian empire. As a rule of thumb, the nobility and the artists when to Paris, and the merchants and businessmen went to Berlin. So in the 1920, Charlottenburg gained the nickname of Charlottengrad, because of all the (formerly) rich Russians flooding the cafés... After all, Charlottenburg was the richest town of Prussia. (Berlin, as we know it now, did not exist until 1920. There was a small Berlin, surrounded by a lot of independent cities, that merged into Groß-Berlin eventually. My Grandfather , born 1915, was very keen to point out he was not a Berliner, But a Charlottenburger. ) Besides, there had always been strong connections between Prussia and Russia for centuries before - did you know that Alexanderplatz, for example, is named in honour of the russian tsar? If you are interested in prussian-russian relations, you'd perhaps want to visit Nikolskoje in the Grunewald and Alexandrowka in Potsdam...
Between the wars, but even after the second world war there remained a strong russian minority in Charlottenburg. My grandfather had actually dated a russian girl during the 30s... And after the war, his father in-law, my grand-grandfather, somehow found he had mostly russian patients, as he was one of the few physicians in West-Berlin who spoke russian. (There were a lot of russian-speaking folks on th eother side of the wall, but as his patients had fled the communist, they surely had no incentive to go there.) 
In the late 1990s the oligarchs and the newly-rich remembered Berlin, bought a lot of second homes ner the Ku'damm and sparked a russian renaissance - and the name Charlottengrad re-surfaced. My wife, by the way, hates Berlin but loves Charlottenburg. Guess what, she's from St. Petersburg...

 

That was interesting to read! I work in Charlottenburg. I can see Schloss Charlottenburg (or parts of it) from my window.  

[turboseize]

4 minutes ago, AugustaAdaByron said:

 

Never a hipster!

 

Quote

Good! I have a beard, drive cool vintage cars, have a steel-frame vintage bike and I still shoot film, but I am NOT a hipster. 

 

Quote

That was interesting to read! I work in Charlottenburg. I can see Schloss Charlottenburg (or parts of it) from my window.

 

I live directly at the Spree... when I go running, my route will always lead me to the Schloßpark.

(We should definitely get the NF Berlin meet-up going.)

[AugustaAdaByron]

2 minutes ago, turboseize said:

 

I live directly at the Spree... when I go running, my route will always lead me to the Schloßpark.

(We should definitely get the NF Berlin meet-up going.)

 

Absolutely, but let's go hiking instead of running!  

 

And I happen to know of a good lifting gym (that has a bouldering wall and a skating hall nearby, but it is kinda far away from you - Friedrichshain).

[turboseize]

F-Hain is on the other side of the wall. And more than one hour away... Another apparently cool gym I'd like to try out if I lived closer is Berlin Strength (known to the fitness community by to the "strength wars"-videos on youtube - a lot of these events were filmed there.)
But I really have everything I need here. Boathouse with boats and barbells; at home, some kettlebells, and if I step out of the door a nice running track by the water and some bars and rings for calisthenics just on the other side of the river. 
Should I ever feel tempted to try strongman, though, I'd have to get to F-Hain... But I'm still far to weak for that kind of stuff. 

Regarding hiking... why not? Hike through Grunewald, climb the Grunewaldturm, finish the day with tea and cakes at Nikolskoje. If enough nerds are interested, I might feel tempted to upgrade the hike to a rucking event. Been a long time that I tortured recruits, I kind of miss that. :-D
On the other hand, if most of the Berlin NF-crowd turns out to be "foreigners", I'd also be glad to just give a guided tour of the city... 

[AugustaAdaByron]

34 minutes ago, turboseize said:

F-Hain is on the other side of the wall. And more than one hour away... Another apparently cool gym I'd like to try out if I lived closer is Berlin Strength.

 

That's the gym I meant!

 

 

34 minutes ago, turboseize said:

 

Regarding hiking... why not? Hike through Grunewald, climb the Grunewaldturm, finish the day with tea and cakes at Nikolskoje. If enough nerds are interested, I might feel tempted to upgrade the hike to a rucking event. Been a long time that I tourtured recruits, I kind of miss that. :-D

 

 

Sounds good!

 

 

34 minutes ago, turboseize said:

On the other hand, if most of the Berlin NF-crowd turns out to be "foreigners", I'd also be glad to just give a guided tour of the city... 

 

I'd subscribe for that!

[turboseize]

Then let's stay in contact. 

I'm off the internet now. Have to get to the boathouse and get my workout done. Wife comes back in the evening, and I really have a lot of tidying-up to too, and i want to have the workout done before the domestic rangering escalates. She always seems to have different definitions of "clean" and "tidy" than me. But I guess that's not just me and her, but XY vs XX chromosomes in general...