Deadlift Domination

In direct contrast to my thoroughly uninspiring day on Monday, today's gym time was freaking great. No coincidence that it was deadlift day.

This is my last week of heavy-ish lifting pre-comp, and while I am not trying to test any 1-rep maxes, I am trying to get as much weight on the bar as I can comfortably handle for triples and doubles. One of my major problems with translating gym performance to competition performance is nerves and lack of confidence, so having some recent gym successes to remind myself of what I am capable of is always helpful.

Today I pulled 265# for two very quick singles, essentially just taking enough time between them to re-set myself (about 20 seconds I'd estimate.) Both lifts came off the floor pretty easy and I was able to get them up cleanly, without rounding my back or hitching (resting the bar on my legs) at all. In my last comp my heaviest clean deadlift was 260# so I am feeling very positive about busting that record relatively easily. At the moment I am tentatively planning on opening with 245#, then trying for 275# and will base my 3rd attempt on how 275# goes.

After getting 265# up twice, I had a monumental passing random thought that went something along the lines of "Rachel, you are 200 pounds of bad-ass." This, without a doubt, marks the first time in my life I have felt solidly proud of all 200 pounds of me, and not wished that number was less. I'm not saying my scale obsession is cured (HA!) but it was a lovely feeling.

Potential reasons today's deadlifting went so well:
1) I went to bed last night at 8:30 and so got over nine hours of sleep.
2) The summer's worth of "rehab" back-strengthening accessory work (not to mention the last couple years of back-strengthing work) and spending a couple months squatting sumo style is paying off.
3) Removing stimulants/caffeine from my pre-workout routine for the last few months has made adding them back in super-effective.
4) Sometimes the deadlift gods are kind.

Regardless of the reason, I am very happy. And also very (appropriately) sore :)