On the last Saturday and Sunday in May, I got into a dispute with owners of The Pit Gym in Dickinson after I updated my December 2017 blog post about their gym, and I wrote a new blog post titled “The Beginning Of The Ruining Of The Pit Gym”.

The gym owners strongly disagreed with what I wrote about their gym, and they shared my new blog post with other people.  As of today, Monday, this blog post has received about 1,200 views.  I believe that the comment numbers are at about 60 comments.  About 25 of these comments are my response.  Of the remaining 35 comments, many of these comments are from the same people.

Altogether, out of the 1,200 blog post views, about 20 people commented.  Though most of the comments were negative and intended to be insulting, there was some exchange of information.  I was told many times that there were women power lifters who would kick my ass in the gym.

I looked up the power lifting women record holders to see what their numbers were.  All of the women power lifting record holders, except one, had a bench press of about 240 lb or less, a squat of about 450 lb, and a dead lift of about 450 lb.

I was kind of interested to see if I could beat these numbers of the women power lifting record holders.  I am 49 years old, and not in very good shape.  I didn’t say that I was weak, I said that I was not in very good shape.

I do not like to do squats and deadlifts because I injured my back very badly in 2011, to where I could not walk for more than about 50 feet and sometimes not at all, for several months.  It took me one year, to regain about 90% of my back functionality.  Here is my back X-Ray from 2011.

Like I said, I do not like to do squat and dead lift exercises.  In 2012, I did a lot of stomach and back strengthening exercises, most often doing sit ups and back raises using a bosu ball.  One year later, at 90% recovered, someone who had broken their back recommended to me that I take the supplement glucosamine with chondroitin, and this supplement helped me to become almost completely recovered.

After recovering from this back injury, and being able to walk again, for a long time I was protective of my back, and I tried to be careful not to lift anything so heavy that I would injure my back again.  Especially not doing squats and deadlifts.

Myself, I was contented to walk 4 to 8 miles, do some leg machine exercises, do some sit ups and stomach crunches, and reverse sit ups, to maintain my leg and back strength.  There was no need for me to do squats or deadlifts, being 49 years old now.

I received so many insults from The Pit Gym owners, their friends who they shared my blog post with, other power lifters, and especially women power lifters, that I will now begin again to see how much weight I can build up to in squat, dead lift, and bench, though I have no interest in power lifting, and think that this is a good way to get injured.

Here is where I am at now:

• Flat bench press, 270 lb x one rep……………………now 290 lb
• Incline bench press, 240 lb x one rep………………now 260 lb
• Seated overhead press, 195 lb x one rep
• Dumbbell press, two 100 lb x six reps
• Prone triceps curls, 135 lb x two reps
• Standing biceps curls, ??
• Dead lift, 345 lb x one rep
• Squat, ??

I did not say that this was a lot of weight, I said that this is where I am at now.  I will update this list above, as I make gains.

All I was looking for, before the insults, was to get back to 315 lb bench, 265 lb incline bench, 245 lb overhead press,  120 lb x 6 reps dumbbell press, 165 lb prone triceps curls, 135 lb standing biceps curls, which were what I used to do.

When I dead lifted 345 lb today, I had not dead lifted anything in the past seven years.  It was not difficult, but I could feel that there were parts of my lower back that were not ready for it.  I expect to be able to dead lift 405 lb, in about six weeks, more or less.