Today I Deadlifted A Biggest Loser Contestant & A Tiny Horse... Five Times.

If this guy was carrying this horse, I could deadlift it five times. If I could figure out where to hold on.

Jared has me on the 5-3-1 program, so every three weeks I work through progressively higher weights for progressively fewer reps.

This is the third week of the cycle, which means that the last set of each compound movement exercise (bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press) is one rep at the very top end of what I'm able to lift.

Actually, it's one-plus. In other words, you've got to get at least one, but after that you should try to do as many as you can. Getting 2 is good, 3 is great.

Today was deadlift, which has historically been the lift I've been scared of. I'd never done it before I started with Jared, and I was worried about wrecking my back if I did it wrong (Jared assured me there's nothing to worry about, and deadlifts will actually make your back a lot stronger and less prone to injury).

Over the last 7 weeks, Jared took me from someone who had never deadlifted ANYTHING to someone who deadlifted 300 pounds after just 3 weeks. But today it was time to bump that up. We worked through the lighter work sets, and ended up with my last set. 315 pounds.

Since I struggled to get 300 pounds 1 time (4 weeks ago), I figured I would be able to get this once, maybe twice if I was lucky, since my form has improved and I've gotten stronger.

Jared thought otherwise. As I'm getting ready to do my last set, he says "I bet you can do this for 5 reps, no problem. Do at least 3, then breathe if you need to before busting out the last two."

Before he said that, I wouldn't have even tried five reps. But guess what? I tried it and hit it.

Five times.

I'm not gonna lie. It felt good.