Wednesday, July 20, 2011

If I can't lift much weight the first few times deadlifting, does it mean I am not naturally very strong?

I am a 36 year old guy who is 5'8" and weigh about 171 pounds. For the past two years every other day I have been doing pull ups (5 sets of 10), push ups (75), planks, sit ups (50), leg lifts (50), bodyweight squats (30), and bodyweight lunges (24). I recently heard that deadlifting is the truest test of strength. So I tried to deadlift for the first time almost four weeks ago and was embarrassed and humiliated. I only started out at about 120 pounds (3 sets of 8 reps)! The next week I was doing 135 (three sets of 8 reps)! Then, just recently, in my last deadlifting session I was only doing sets of 145 pounds and it felt somewhat heavy. There are bone skinny 105 pound and 110 pound women on youtube who are doing 300 pounds! And even the females who are new to deadlifting are all doing about 200 pounds in their first few weeks. There was this one tiny bone skinny 105 woman in particular who started out deadlifting 115 pounds and then a month later she maxed at 180 pounds! It has been over three weeks for me and I probably couldn't do 160! What is wrong with me!? Am I just naturally an extremely weak man? Why was my starting weight so much lower than everyone else's? Most women on youtube can do 150 pounds or more their first time deadlifting. People in forums say you should easily be able to deadlift your weight the first time. I can't do near that and I am an athletic guy. Even if I haven't been doing deadlifts, I have been doing bodyweight squats and lunges for the past two years. So, the fact that I am so extremely weak at the deadlift is a red flag that something is not right. I studied real hard and I learned how to do proper form in the deadlift, too. I am getting proper rest in between deadlifting sessions, too. The problem here is lack of strength. My grip is definitely strong enough because of the pull ups I did. Most people (especially women) can deadlift a lot but they have problems with the grip but the grip is not my problem. My problem is that I might have the weakest lower back and glutes and leg muscles of any man in the world. This is humiliating! I keep thinking, "Is something wrong? Why am I so naturally weak? No grown man at my weight is this weak. Do I have cancer or something?"

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