Strength Goals: April - June 2010

For the last few months my goals have always been around weight, fat and muscle. But this time I want to try something different. I am finding it really hard to make sense of the varying weight and fat numbers. So this time I want to have strength goals (which always should go up). Again these can vary a bit too, but I want to give it a try and see how I do with strength goals.

At the end of March 2010, the numbers for some compound exercises are as follows (able to do 3 x 5):

• Squats: 175 lbs
• Bench Press: 125 lbs
• Rows: 95 lbs
• Shoulder Press: 65 lbs
• Deadlift: 200 lbs

Looking at the past trend for most of my compound exercises, I see a 5 lbs increase per month in the weight that I can lift. Extrapolating that for 3 months I should be able to lift about 15 lbs more than I lifted at the end of March. Just to make it a bit more challenging I throw in an extra 5 lbs to the goals. So the final goal for each of the compound exercises should be a 20 lbs increase in the lifts.

But wait! I am not done setting my goals yet. First, I am doing better at my deadlifts then other compound exercises, so I want to have a higher goal for deadlift. Instead of 20 lbs gain, I want to have a 40 lbs gain in deadlifts. Next, my current rows and shoulder press weights are pretty low to start with. I cannot expect to gain a full 20 lbs on those exercises, which is why I want to gain about 15 lbs on those 2 exercises. The final goals one more time (3 x 5):

• Squats: 195 lbs
• Bench Press: 145 lbs
• Rows: 110 lbs
• Shoulder Press: 80 lbs
• Deadlift: 240 lbs

Looking forward to another 3 months of strength gains...