Maxing Out- Full Results

[donfrancisco]

Dear Coach Baker,

I just finished my fourth 1RM attempt (Press) and I slightly exceeded what I was shooting for! Overall this week, I met or exceeded my 1RM goals on 3 of the 4 lifts.

The only exception was the deadlift. I had previously pulled 375x5x1 so I set the goal at 440 per your recommendation in the video. I followed the following progression: 135x5x2, 205x5, 285x3, 340x1, 380x1, 420x0, 440 (didn't even think about it), 405x0.
So I basically pooped out after pulling a single with 5lbs. more then my previous pull for 5. Neither 420 nor 405 left the floor, despite 8-9 minutes rest before each attempt. I can't figure out what went wrong--DL is one of my favorite lifts, I was well fed, well slept and my form was good.

Despite that hiccup, I'm very gratified I met all of my other goals. I found this "maxing out" week to be a lot of fun and I look forward to testing myself again in another quarter.

Yours in strength,

Francisco

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Do you perform your Deadlifts with touch n go reps or do you FULLY PAUSE and deload all 5-reps of your work sets?

[donfrancisco]

I fully deload all 5 reps of my works sets.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I'd have to have seen the lift. My guess is that you just need a little more experience pulling heavy singles. I've seen a lot of lifters that abandoned a lift waaaaay too early because they don't know how to really strain against a heavy load. From 380 you probably should have tried like 405. Once you missed at 420 then you were shot. With deads you don't get a lot of retrys. A miss can be just as taxing as a completed single. So maybe you could have gotten 405, but not after missign with 420.