Training.

12/11 - stretch, deadlifts [PR 500 w/chalk, belt & mixed grip]

Last heavy deadlift workout of 2015 and hit a 1RM PR.  Pretty satisfying.  Objectively, 500 isn't a huge #, but it's the goal I set when I first started deadlifting 2.5 years ago.  I've been chasing 1RMs pretty hard the last six months as I switched from the regular 5/3/1 to the 5/3/1 for Powerlifting template so I could work heavy singles into the routine.  Adaptation is specific and all that, so if you want to get better at heavy singles, you've got to pull heavy singles.  

Ideally, I'd have pulled this at a lighter bodyweight but ultimately I had to decide whether I wanted to stay lean or I wanted to get stronger.  I went with stronger.  Put on about 25lbs in 2015, including about 15lbs in the last 6 months.  Not all muscle, obviously, as the waistline expanded a couple inches as well.   Of course I was using the #EatAllTheThings as the nutrition template, which is almost harder than the workouts, tbh.  In 2016 I'm going to temper that and tighten up the food a bit, change up the assistance template some and improve some body composition markers and settle in for slower - but probably ultimately more healthy - gains.

Road to 500 - without training I pulled about 308-315 during a random workout in 2012 and during one of my first workouts the summer of 2013.  Started deadlifting when I started 5/3/1 a couple weeks after that.  After about 4-5 months of neural patterning, working on form and with a belt and some chalk I hit 396 for a single.  Standard 5/3/1 doesn't really play w/1RM much, instead using repPRs.  I worked up to 396 for a triple in late summer of 2014.  Kept working repPRs for the next year, slow-steady progress and then switched up to 5/3/1 for Powerlifting in Aug of this year.

Next up in long term goals is 600, ideally at a bodyweight of 200 for a triple bw deadlift.  Ever onwards.