I love to lift heavy things! Barbells are good, but so are logs, stones, tires, barrels, sandbags, I-beams, rear-ends, list goes on lol.

You bring up a good point regarding the dichotomy. If you look big and strong, that is a positive, healthy, thing. If you lift weights, you must be a meathead or a juicer, lol. But its clearly not a dichotomy! You must lift weights to become big and strong!

Well I left the juicer part out because of my two examples! But even beyond the steroid thing is certainly the dumb jock, meathead, etc. There is also the idea that it is narcissistic. Unfortunately for all of us for every stereotype there is a notable example of that stereotype…or many examples. And that's what will stick in people's mind. The human mind had much rather catalogue those things that meet it's expectations than to create new expectations. It's more efficient.

Unfortunately for all of us for every stereotype there is a notable example of that stereotype…or many examples

Exactly. Afterall, a stereotype exists for a reason…People saw that behaviour as typical of a certain population!

Lifting heavy things sounds fun, i'll sign up

It's funny Nate the more you put it like that the more people say, Oh, I get it.

Hi Eric,

I would like to set myself some specific goals in terms of hitting a given weight in the deadlift and the press by a certain date but I am not sure how to do this as I am not sure what form my training will take in the longer term. (Is the plan to move from doubles to singles, or something else entirely?).

Would it be possible to give me a rough outline of where I should be headed over the next 6 to 12 months please? I realise this is all subject to change but if I have a very high level view I may be able to say, "I am going to press 200lbs by June 2012", or something like that.

What do you think?

Thanks,

leather.

Bump - just to make sure this doesn't get lost in the Imaginary Lat Syndrome discussion! : )

^^ LOL

Thanks for bumping this, Leather. It's a really awesome read!

He was just bumping his question!

^^^ Oh wow I missed that totally.

Would it be possible to give me a rough outline of where I should be headed over the next 6 to 12 months please? I realise this is all subject to change but if I have a very high level view I may be able to say, "I am going to press 200lbs by June 2012", or something like that.

IMO, one cannot set a fixed number like that because what ends up happening is that you begin to allow it to chase you instead of you chasing it.

What I mean is, lets say that in the next 6-12 months we can anticipate your Deadlift to be in the 350-400 ballpark range and then somehow 5 months from now we realize that you're still stuck in the 320-350 range. Now, one of two things can happen. You can either be totally find with it or you can begin to believe that you have to meet this expectation of yours and if you fall short then you feel dissatisfied.

Eric posted a really awesome article on this out here which you should check out because it will help put things into perspective: http://www.gustrength.com/forum/t-224304/daniel-kahneman:the-riddle-of-experience-vs-memory

Instead of creating a time limit, I think having small goals should help you. And by that I don't think having particular "big lift" goals as the sole goals is a good things. You WILL get stronger on the Deadlift, Press, etc. This is something we know. How strong you will - the quantity of what you will be able to lift, is something we cannot predict. So to keep things interesting, I think you should set goals in other lifts like doing a BW + 100 lbs Pull-up or even tinier goals like being able to hit 3x7 on Dumbbell Rows with some heavy weight.

Don't create time limits on yourself because they end up doing much more harm than good.

We're in this for the long haul: you will train hard, you will grow both as a trainee and as a sum of your lifts. So let it happen and just enjoy the whole process.

When you hit 400 on the DL you will be a different trainee than when you hit 350 before that. So allow all this to happen. Eric's mentioned this and I believe this: for most of us, you have to "grow" into your lifts. It's not just about putting in X amount of hard work…a lot more comes to that.