10 Nov Dan Dalenberg- 1500 to 2000, Part 1: The Beginning

As a part of my meet write up for Relentless Detroit I would like to share more information on my background and growth through 10/20/Life. This is 1500-2000 Part 1, The Beginning.

Like most powerlifters I started strength training because of other sports and because I loved to bench. My older brother had played football and I had seen him bench around 250 pounds. I thought it was the most badass thing I had ever seen so I started trying to do what he had done.

Turns out I wasn’t all that good at football. I enjoyed playing and at my little high school I did OK, but what I really enjoyed was getting strong. I had competed in several local meets and had squatted in the mid-400s, benched 315 or so, and pulled 405. I was lifting at 165 and 181, nothing impressive but having fun with it.

Once football was over for me, powerlifting became a main stay. I had no clue what I was doing. I followed plenty of different cookie cutter programs like 5/3/1 and was still getting stronger. Honestly at that point as a lifter I just needed to put in work and get reps in. Cookie cutter stuff was working ok but progress was stalling. I managed to get myself to 1575 @ 220 but after a frustrating meet where I fell short of that, I knew I needed something more.

I knew at that point I needed a coach and mentor. I asked Ted Toalston and Steve Diel of EliteFTS for a recommendation and they pointed me to Brian Carroll.

After a few emails with Brian, he worked up my first 10/20 training cycle. Right away I knew this was something very different from what I had been doing. For the first time I had real focus on three areas:

• Injury prevention/rehab/prehab
• Weak point specific training
• Peaking properly for a meet

12 weeks later I lifted and posted a nice PR total of 1630. This was April of 2011.

I still didn’t really know what I was doing but I was making progress again. Brian kept helping me with my training and I kept learning. Now I was figuring out how to identify needs and was getting strong. My total kept coming up, going over 1700 in 2012, 1860 in 2013 and 1900 early this year. I had also eaten my way up to 250 pounds. Every meet training cycle I picked one weakness per lift and kept hammering away. I knew I had a lot of work to do but I also knew that powerlifting is a sport of longevity. I needed to keep chipping away and building strength to get to where I wanted to be.

Now I was learning how to be a pro and was getting much closer to a lifetime goal of a 2000 pound total… [share title=”Share this Article” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”true” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”true” reddit=”true” email=”true”][author title=”About the Author”]

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Daniel Dalenberg

Dan Dalenberg is a pro level raw and equipped powerlifter with elite totals in the 220, 242 and 275 class. Best official raw meet lifts include an 804 squat, 507 bench press, 715 dead lift and 2006 total. Best equipped lifts include an 950 squat, 715 bench, 735 deadlift and 2400 total at 242. Dan has been training under Brian's guidance using the 10/20/Life methodology since late 2010.

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