@heatherk Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I did definitely do some ego lifting last year that I probably shouldn’t have (I did this weight last week - why am I struggling so much this week. I said, having been in a calorie deficit for the last 3 months
). Luckily no injuries - I’ve always been fairly careful about that. I started lifting to help with my back pain so injuring myself would be counter productive.
My #1 goal will be to stop the ego lifting and going close to failure. It makes way more sense to lower the weights when I need to and make sure that every rep is full range of motion with perfect technique.
I have naturally huge quads - so I credit my squat to them. There was a point where I was squatting more than my 6ft tall husband
. I haven’t been as consistent with deadlifting because I took a weightlifting class and we would only deadlift every other week - but we were squatting and benching every week. I’m pretty sure I could deadlift more at the beginning of the class than at the end.
Thank you for your advice. And good luck reaching your bench goal!