Last night was back training, and it was a very important and memorable workout. I broke a few personal records, and reached a strength-related deadlift goal that I’ve been working towards for quite some time.

Strength-related goal?! John?! Yes, you read that correctly! I’ll explain…

Most of you who have been visiting this site for awhile already know why I don’t talk about how much weight I lift. Because my primary focus is pure hypertrophy (gaining muscle size), strength gains are only important to me from a progressive resistance standpoint. In other words, I really don’t care how much weight I’m lifting, so long as I’m lifting more weight with each successive workout. I guess the only exception to that statement is with deadlifts. I’ve made no secret about the fact that I really enjoy doing heavy deadlifts. For whatever reason, I find it extremely satisfying on a very primal level to pick up a barbell off the floor when it’s loaded down with plates.

So, for more than a year I’ve been working towards a deadlift goal that I set for myself. Last night I finally reached that goal, performing four sets of eight reps using twice my bodyweight (430 pounds), with two minutes of rest between each set. I talked a bit more about the workout, the deadlift goal and posted a new picture in my media journal. Here’s the link.

My new deadlift goal is not an easy one: I want to perform the same feat, except I want to use 500 pounds. Reaching that goal may not happen this year, but it’s going to happen.