Too heavy too soon?

dym123

Hi all,

Been lifting at home seriously for about a year, but wanted to start lifting heavier and was restricted, so I recently joined a powerlifting gym near my house. Last night was my first workout and was pleasantly surprise at how heavy I was able to lift. But now I'm thinking I'm might have gone too heavy.

My home workout: 5 reps
Front squat - 60lb
Overhead Press - 50lb
Deadlifts - 100lbs

Gym workout
Back Squat - 140lbs (started with 3 reps, made it to 5 by 5th set)
Overhead Press - 65lbs (6 reps, started at 55lbs)
Deadlifts - 135lbs - 5 reps

I'm sticking with the basic compound movements (or SL 5x5) for heavy lifting for now.

So what do you think am I lifting too heavy to start or should I just accept that I'm some sort of freak of nature and go with it?

questionfear

If you were able to complete everything with good form, then that's great! Could be that you're stronger than you think. But that's a huge jump on the squats!

Are you following Stronglifts program or just using the lifts? I started Stronglifts with just the 45lb bar, but if I recall the advice was to go with half your one rep max as a starting point so you don't immediately plateau due to the progressive loading.

If it helps, in a month of SL I've gone from 45lb squats to 100lb squats, so even if you do step back further to give yourself more room to increase you'll get back there quite quickly.

MissHolidayGolightly

I'd also think that if you're able to back squat 140, you should be able to deadlift more.

dym123

Thanks ladies for the feedback. I'm not following the SL program, so much as I'm using it as a guide to see if I want to do powerlifting and/or strongman. I have to start somewhere. This new gym is full of "lunkheads", so I'm sure I'll get plenty of guidance.

Jennloella

I agree if you have good form then roll with it. You're not a freak, my DL started at 185.