The end is the beginning is the end.

It's over. For a short while.

Today was a sick day. I'm tired and beat up, but I managed to have a solid workout today. And now it's time for rest and recovery, finally.

Started with benching. I worked up the way I'm planning to work up to my max bench two thursdays from now - warmed up with 95, 135, 155, 175, hit 195 for a single, then jumped up to 210. I took my time between sets, but I managed to get all 9 singles, which is pretty fucking awesome! All the reps were solid and smooth - not fast, but very nice. Hopefully with some rest, I'll be able to nail 215 when I get back, and maybe even try another single after that. But I know from personal experience that time off normally hurts my bench a lot. We will see. Either way, 9 x 1 at 210 is a sick accomplishment.

Next was overhead press, which also went really well. I hit 115 x 5, 130 x 3, and then 145 x 4 pretty easy (I even tried for rep 5, but to no avail). That's awesome - it ties my pr at that weight, and that 4th rep was much easier than the last time I hit 4 at 145. Then I dropped back andhit 130 x 5 from a dead stop, and 115 x 9 from a dead stop.

Next, I maxed out my pullups - did a quick set of 2, then went for it. I managed to pull 8 from a completely dead hang, then hit a 9th rep with just the tiniest amount of hips to get my chin all the way over. This is pretty fucking awesome too - most pullups I think I have ever gotten in my life is 6 or 7. My lats are definitely growing stronger and larger.

Next, did some pushups, on the 30 seconds, keeping form nice. Got 5 sets of 10 and decided to call it there.

Finally, I couldn't bring myself to pull anything heavy, so I just did 3 sets to failure of band pull aparts. I definitely got a bit of a back pump, no matter how stupid these are hahaha.

SOOO: This is the end of 6 months or so of hard, hard lifting, And I have made some awesome accomplishments. Lets do a quick recap of some stuff that has changed over the course of these last few months, what I have learned, etc:

1) I weighed myself today, for the first time in forever. When I started this program, I weighed around 205 pretty consistently. By the time I left school (about 3 months ago) I was down to about 195 in the mornings. And this morning when I woke up, I weighed 185. As far as muscle size goes, I don't think I lost any muscle, but I am FAR leaner - this morning especially, there was NO way I was over 12% body fat. This is a huge improvement from the start of this program, when I was between 16 and 18% bodyfat. AND I'm stronger. so, 20 lbs of fat lighter and stronger - that's pretty awesome. The take away: My diet is working. Keto, with a cheat day and a cheat meal once a weak, has helped me immensely. I'm going to keep at this, and hopefully by the end of my next cycle (december), I will be below 10%. I DO want to gain some muscle as well, so I'm gonna have to EAT EAT EAT on those cheat days. But for now, I'm very happy with my appearance and body comp. I'll re-asses again in december.

2) work capacity has definitely improved a ton. I can do sets of 10 squats and bench with no real problem. I haven't added in much running/rowing/conditioning consistently, but when I do do it, it's not NEARLY as bad as when I started this program. AND, when I do it (in moderation), it normally makes my next lifting session BETTER, not worse. The take away - keep some light conditioning in AT LEAST once a week, to keep my work capacity up, and it will help my lifting immensely.

3) Most importantly, my strength has improved a ton on this program. Obviously, I haven't maxed out all my lifts yet, so my gains could be even BETTER than I think - but even in those maxes are a flop, I still have made tremendous progress. Obviously, my squat is the most impressive - at the start of this program, My heaviest squat ever was 275, and my first rep out (215) was for 8 reps. My best squat ever now is 345, and my best rep out to day is 300 x 8. Awesome gains there. Even with my recent form changes which are pissing me off, I'm much stronger than I was 6 months ago. My bench was 205 (if I was lucky) 6 months ago, and today I crushed 210 for 9 singles - not huge gains, but solid improvement, which is great considering the full YEAR i was stuck at 205. My overhead press is far better - 145 was my 1 rep 6 months ago, and today I hit that for 4 after benching. And my deadlift was 335 back then - My max now is 375, and I have a feeling I may crush that when I max out.

So, bottom line: I'm far stronger, leaner, lighter, and more conditioned than 6 months ago. Improvement across the board.

This next cycle is going to change some things, but hopefully I will still be able to progress pretty much all over - I want to put on some muscle, try to get my bodyfat a little lower, work on my conditioning, and most importantly KEEP GETTING STRONGER. This was a great 6 months - lets hope I can keep the progress up.