2025-4-15

Day: Chest

Gonna try to get more consistent with this. I think ever since I’ve stopped writing things down, I haven’t had any outlet really to self-reflect. Birthday is in an hour, so no better time to start again I guess.

Recap since like August of last year:

Aug-Oct: felt really good going back to school. I think the first couple weeks, I just felt super strong on everything. Started creatine in August, so coming back to the weights at school felt good. It’s my first year living off campus, so I had to figure out the food problem too. My strength gradually tapered off since I wasn’t eating as much as lost a little bit of weight, but it was fine for the most part. During this time I was doing like 175 for 6 on incline bench. I think physique was pretty good for the most part too, and I was mainly focused on getting stronger as opposed to getting the freaky look when I was cutting. Overall just a solid period of time.

Oct-Dec: I started getting pretty inconsistent here. Took like 2-3 day rests for no reason other then telling myself I needed to for school. Also fell back into playing video games with my high school friends for like 2 months too. Was staying up super late since my workload was pretty light, and just played until like 5-6. It was straight up escapism. Never had much social interaction in college, and I think that caught up to me. Especially being off-campus and being locked in my room all day except when I’d go to the gym. Hanging out with my old buddies over Discord was great, and it was fun to talk with other people again. I had like a weird allergy or something over Thanksgiving break. It was the first time in my life I experienced something like it, but I took off like a month from the gym. Coming back to school after break was pretty bad, since I didn’t have the gym anymore. Spent more and more time on video games, and just having no direction to follow.

Jan-Mar: Took like a month and a half-ish to build back my strength. Was a pretty bad process, but I stuck with it. Coming back to the gym after a long break feels so bad, and mentally it’s a struggle to have difficulty pushing lighter weight. I started just eating like crazy when I came back to school to bulk up. During spring break I got 200 for 4 on the incline smith, and based on the 175 no smith I did last fall I think that means I can get like 190 for 4 no smith as well; haven’t touched the raw incline bench since last fall though. Got to 180, was happy for a time, and then school caught up to me. It’s been a constant back-and-forth of building up my strength, taking like a 3-7 day break to finish a project or study for a test, and coming back.

Last week, I was the strongest I’ve ever been. Repped like 220 (+ 7) on the incline hammer strength and repped like 180 for lat pulldowns. Everything was just going so smoothly.

Then from Wednesday-Saturday, I had a 4 day bender to grind for a project. Like 2-3 hours of sleep a day, and for 2 of those days I had like no food. Straight up a banana, 2 bars, and a coffee got me through 48 hours. My body got wrecked too. I have like a really weird pressure thing on my heart right now that I’m hoping is just from that. Regardless, ended up taking 5 days off from the gym that I need to come back from. Don’t think I’m gonna sacrifice my gym split or diet for academics again for the rest of this semester. It’s way too taxing to go back-and-forth on the progression every 2 weeks or so. Just gotta make it happen.

Chest today was pretty alright for the most part. I was concerned about the heart thing, but it didn’t affect me too much. Repped like 210 for 8 on the incline hammer strength and everything else was fine, so I didn’t lose too much strength; ate like crazy the past 2 days so I’m around 180 again. I got a little over eager and tweaked my right trap when I was doing incline dumbells, but I’m just gonna ignore it for now.

Had plans to start my cut on my birthday, but based on last week and the rest of the semester, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I’m hoping that I can start at the beginning of May though, so I’m looking forward to that. I want to hold onto my strength and enjoy it for as long as possible after all the setbacks, but at the same time it’s been too long since I’ve seen freaky vascularity.

Time moves so quickly when I’m busy. Miss my home at lot too.

To better days ahead…