It’s hard to give you an exact timeline right now. I’ve been training consistently without any breaks for the last five years. Beyond just lifting weights, I’ve stayed busy with boxing and Muay Thai—I actually run a small club in a town similar to Des Moines that caters mostly to recreational fighters. I’m 23 years old, though my journey really started when I first stepped into a gym at 15. Between the ages of 15 and 18, I suppose you could say I was pretty "unserious" about the whole thing.😁 Over the last couple of years, I’ve shifted my focus toward fast-twitch muscle fiber development.🙂. I just wrapped up the Bill Starrett 5x5 program, so in a few weeks, I’m planning to test my 1RM across all my lifts. I’ll probably film the attempts and maybe upload them to YouTube or something along those lines. To be honest, I’ve always wanted to dive deeper into Olympic lifting, but it's tough. My local gym doesn't have a proper lifting platform, plus people give you these strange looks when you tell them you're aiming for raw strength rather than just looking like a bodybuilder.👎.
I remember seeing someone pose this exact same question on an MMA forum a while back... Most people, maybe 90%, were convinced it could happen.🙄. But honestly? I don't think so. You have to realize that in today's landscape, almost every professional athlete is running some kind of cycle, even the guys in the lower weight classes around 140 pounds. It's just the reality of the game now. And don't even get me started on guys like Alistair Overeem and those heavy hitters.
Just some recreational lifting here in my hometown, somewhere in the Midwest😁. As far as I know, I'm pretty much the only one training seriously around here. I weigh about 170 lbs. Barbell bench press: 350 lbs Olympic style bench: 250 lbs Incline: 240 lbs Deadlift: 400 lbs Standard bench press: 250 lbs Power cleans: 200+ lbs (I don't have a lifting platform at my local gym, so I can't really drop the weights; I just lower them down onto my quads first and then to the floor) Bodyweight pull-ups: 47 reps Dips-bez: I can handle them easily even with a 75 lb dumbbell (it's the heaviest one they carry)
It would be really great if we could all start dropping our workouts and personal records in this thread. I’ve been getting pretty deep into powerlifting lately myself. Anyway, I found this little bit of motivation from Captain Kirk here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo1tU1YqPp0
How exactly are they doing? If you’re a veteran, you’ve got your pension—plus you're picking up side gigs under the table because, frankly, you're bored—on top of having stakes in a veterans' fund. Your kid gets into college just by passing half the entrance exam, and then comes the scholarship; back in the day, you could even import cars tax-free like a wounded warrior. If you're a farmer—a real grower—well, life's a breeze. You plant some wheat, the government buys half your tractor, tosses in a subsidy, and you don't even have to worry about selling the crop. You just sell it back to the government at whatever price you feel like naming. You haven't even spent two months a year actually out in the field! If you work in the civil service, you basically don't work at all—it's great because the paycheck and benefits just roll in. But if you're a retiree voting for the Republican Party or the Libertarian Party, you're still getting squeezed by the state—even though your savings were gutted and looted back in the '90s, and there isn't enough left to raise workers' wages. And if you're part of the diaspora, you vote because you get all the perks with zero obligations—no taxes, no local levies, no tribute, and no military service (which is gone now anyway)—all while asking the USA for subsidies despite already having your own home base. In short—there is no economy that can sustain this right now, let alone in the future.
Well said. If I could add one thing... I was over at an old friend's place yesterday, and his neighbor was there too. This guy is only 24, but he’s been officially retired since he turned twenty. I asked him, "How on earth did you manage to pull that off?" He just shrugged and said, "Why not? I take the retirement check $587 and then do some odd jobs on the side. It works for me. My doctor wrote me a whole list of ailments..." You find scammers like that everywhere. It's the same old story, just different packaging.😠
It’s because everyone is just sitting there, waiting for some "chosen one" to finally step up and actually do something. The way things are playing out right now... it all feels a bit like waiting for Google...
Gregory Williams7, from what I’ve gathered by following his posts, can be pretty blunt... but honestly, I find myself agreeing with most of what he says. As for that lady going by feralwolf24... she really ought to come down to Pittsburgh sometime and see what kind of salary she’d actually pull in the private sector. I don't know a single person making more than $3,500, and the average pay here sits right around $2,500. It seems like everyone just wants to land a government gig because they "have a degree." But why wouldn't you want to hire someone yourself? There's this mindset where people think honest small business owners are doing just fine and don't care about the struggle just because they have some capital...🙄