OK, Let's Lift! And 1 and 2 and 1 and 2

Training Training Logs
843

dude, noooooooo kidding! My bodyweight was way down even by contest day. I didn’t have to cut any water at all to make weight, stepped on the scale in full clothes lol.

The log press was right around what I expected, and I knew I could kill it with the bags.

The deadlift far exceeded expectations. I was thinking I’d be good for around 570-580. I opened at 555, thinking I’d go 575 then 595, with the 595 probably being out of reach that day. 555 just fucking flew up, and I felt like I was taking a risk going for 595, but I went ahead and took it as my second attempt. 595 was also actually also a comp PR. I couldn’t believe how smooth that rep ended up being, I was absolutely on fire.

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844

Congrats man, nice way to pop yourself out of a rut.

280lb log…whew. Put that one on the lifting resume.

845

Great job Flip! Wish I could have made it out to watch. My wife’s gymnastics team had a competition that overlapped. That’s awesome that you did well and hopefully itclights a fire to get back into more competitions!

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846

The goal is 300 in 2 months, my man! The ‘special supplementation’ starts up this week, so I think there’s a decent chance I’ll get there.

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847

And how many mg of supplements will you be taking :joy:

848

over 9000

849

lol I kid.

By the last few weeks, probably in the 2500ish range. Probably around 1500 for the next 4 weeks, then close to 2500 in the 4 weeks leading up to it.

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850

I’m excited for this, haha

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851

Nice work flip and goodnto have you back posting

852

What’s nutrition going to look like? I imagine you’ll be eating something stupid like 1000 grams of carbs before lunch lol

853

He eats pop tarts. 'Nuff said.

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854

I’ll definitely keep the carbs high, but I’m also going to work hard to eat cleaner. And sorta kinda follow the vertical diet principles. Meaning, I’m going to start eating a whole lot more white rice, and quality red meat. I’m going to be cooking regularly, bringing food to work, stuff like that. It’s not going to be a super strict diet, by any means, but I think just adding that in will make a big difference.

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855

You’ve mentioned how you’ve changed since late teens a lot on here, I just don’t remember you ever mentioned this. Do you mind me asking whether there was one thing that made you decide to change? Or was it more of a gradual thing?

856

Are we talking specifically about when I committed myself to physical self improvement (lifting weights), or like, more general mindset? I’ll go ahead and answer this in a way that I think answers what you’re asking in a general way, and if there’s more you want to know, feel free to ask :slight_smile:

So, at the very end of high school, and the summer before college, I took an interest in weightlifting. That was the first time I ever lifted a barbell, at the field house at my school. I was so small and weak that it was very difficult to just get started. The empty bar was pretty unmanageable for me. So I lifted a few times with friends, and over the summer I was doing it sporadically.

Then I got to college, and had a real gym to go to for the first time. I started going a few times a week. I had bought the Arnold Bodybuilding Encyclopedia, and was basically just learning from that. My second semester, I took a weightlifting class, and that was the first time I really engaged in any structured lifting, on a schedule. At the end of that semester, I did legs for the first time. And puked. And hated it.

So that’s essentially when and how I started lifting weights. The reason I did involves a couple things. 1. I was unpopular with girls (and really everyone for that matter, lol) , and I wanted to change that. Going to college with a bunch of strangers was the first opportunity I had in my life to make a fresh start, and I wanted to take advantage of that. Arnold was my idol, and I wanted to know what it felt like, what the experience was like of having muscles, of being strong, and physically attractive. I wanted a glimpse into the life of Arnold. So to sum it up, I started lifting weights mostly for the social benefits.

At the same time, I was living away from my parents for the first time, and I was adjusting to the newfound freedom. The freedom to go to parties, make my own schedule, literally do whatever I wanted with every hour of the day. I was working hard to be better at talking to people, specifically women, to be more attractive, dress better, etc. All the things that I thought would improve my life, aside from the gym. I was really dedicated to this, for years and years. It’s a long, hard process to make the changes I did in my life, but I was so deeply unsatisfied with who I was that I kept to it, sometimes off and on, for such a long time.

Certain things were more gradual than others. It wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I really stopped taking long breaks (like a month or longer) from the gym. And that’s also when I became really dedicated to making true, consistent progress, for years on end. I got tired of yo-yo-ing. That’s when I became more engaged in strength training as well, and really embracing the process as much as the results.

Hopefully this gets to at least some of what you wanted to know.

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857

That’s a very detailed response, and an inspiring story, thank you.

Was that a drive that you always had, redirected towards lifting? Or a new found drive?

858

good question.

Learning to put in the effort and the necessary discipline, learning to deal with the pain, making myself go back to the gym over and over again, eating consistently when I didn’t want to, all of that stuff was new to me, a truly new mentality. It’s a big part of why I take so much more pride in what I’ve accomplished in strongman than I do in some of my other accomplishments.

My life up until I was 18 was all about academics. That’s really all my parents cared about. I wasn’t allowed to play sports during the school year until I was in high school, and I joined the golf team. And that was only because it was a class, and my dad loved golf, lol. I never played football or soccer, only a little basketball. I played baseball growing up, but never in a competitive league, because it would have interfered with school. I went to SMU on a nearly full academic scholarship. I was a National Merit Scholar. And at the time, I was very proud of that. But the fact is, that stuff came relatively easy for me. I was built to be smart and succeed academically. It didn’t take a ton of discipline. I procrastinated with everything. I bs’ed my way through papers, and that was generally good enough to get A’s. Relative to weightlifting, that was a cake walk.

I feel like youth sports in a competitive league can teach a lot of the things that I ended up learning on my own in college. The drive was, indeed, new. And it was the result of simply reaching a point of being fed up with my previous life. I wouldn’t have found that drive if I had been happy.

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859

What age were you when you would say you finally got “strong and big” or the point where people could tell you lift heavy? I guess the “first peak” before all the other ones.

860

I would say around 30. I really started to look strong in the last year, maybe 2 years before I went to the ‘dark side’. It’s kinda hard for me to really judge, because I’m so much stronger now. But I can tell you that I THOUGHT I looked big and strong loooooong before I really did. I remember feeling, at like 160-165 lbs, that that was as much as my body could really support. I felt bloated and slow and awful. Funny to think back on that now. It seems like a lifetime ago, that it wasn’t even me. But yea, around 28-30, I started getting really regular comments on my appearance. That’s when it changed from ‘do you lift weights’ to ‘where do you lift’. And it eventually became ‘so are you like a bodybuilder?’

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861

I was in the same boat as you here. Unfortunately I left it a little later to realise that not everything in life was going to come as easily as A’s at school.

Thanks for the write up again, I find it fantastic to see how successful people got to be successful. Far more interesting than the “finished product”.

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862

Thanks for sharing Flip, it was a great write up and good to see an fellow lifter start with the Arnold encyclopaedia. Quality.