Context
To understand 2025, I think I need to start at 2024. I had overdid my first cut, dragging it on far longer than I should’ve. Ended it around March or April reaching 146 at my lowest. Gradually gained weight towards the end of school year and into the summer, reaching around 160-165. Before school started two things happened:
First, I started taking creatine for the first time. It felt amazing, like my strength had increased by 10% overnight.
Second, I had a pretty bad lower back injury soon after. Something nerve damaged related, I think it’s sciatica. It’s still there now, and I think I’ll need to focus on rehabing it sometime soon.
School started and I was super strong. I couldn’t hit legs in the beginning because of my back, but upper-body wise I felt good. At my peak in September, I was incline benching 175 for about 6 reps. However, it was my first time living off campus, and the food situation wasn’t the best. I started losing weight, and my strength gradually declined. I was taking creatine for granted too, relying on it to make up for the deficit in my training intensity and consistency.
Then, I got sick during Thanksgiving break and took a month off until January. Didn’t have a good diet, stayed up late, and lost focus on training. Was in a pretty bad spot.
The Incident of April 2025
Started building it back in January. I’ve had to go through this process once or twice before, and it’s always rough. But things were looking good until February and March.
By this point, I was a little under my peak strength from September, but I wasn’t in a bad place by any means.
My energy was divided between the gym and school. I’d have a couple weeks of consistent training, then I’d need to pull a couple all nighters to finish a project or study for a test, and have to build back up to where I was before. The toll from this constant back and forth combined with the incident of April 2025 changed everything.
The clarity and focus I got was just like the road to benching 225 again.
Momentum
I realized that taking advantage of momentum is so important. Within the same time frame, you can make exponentially more gains. I went all in from that point on until the end of the school year.
It was such an amazing period of my life. The weights were moving so nicely, and I was hitting PRs so frequently. At my strongest I reached 247 for 6 reps on the incline hammer strength, with around 187 as the starting point.
There’s little point in spending your energy on things you don’t enjoy, especially in college. Sure, it’s possible to do well and be above average at something you’re not interested in—that just takes effort. But to truly find your stride and be exceptional, you have to live and love the process in the path to reaching your goals. There’s less friction in doing something you enjoy rather than forcing something to happen.
Carrying On
I tried to keep the same energy and momentum going forwards after graduating college. Decided to go on a cut around this point too, dropping from 184 to 160 during the summer. Things went well; the only bad part was being limited to the equipment at my Rec Center.
After I finished my second cut, I realized that I had dropped too far in my first one. I think a good baseline going forwards is 20 lbs, as anything after that is when my frame gets awkwardly small and I become significantly weaker. Was looking pretty good though, it was nice going to the beach and all that.
Goals
I couldn’t take the lack of equipment anymore. After learning how to drive, I switched to a different gym a little bit further away with more equipment. I had felt myself hitting a bit of a plateau in terms of strength over the summer, so I needed to switch things up.
My new gym had an incline bench, so I started off with that. After a couple chest days, I decided to go for a PR run. Haven’t gone for a 1 rep PR since benching 225 on 10/23/2023, but I felt the itch come back. It took about 2 months, and it was an amazing process.
Having a goal helps get over plateaus. It was the extra push I needed to constantly up my weights and reps. Otherwise, you sort of fall into a maintenance state without anything to chase after.
From this experience, I decided to go back to flat bench to hit 315 next. I’m at 245 right now, and I think I can do it in 2026. It’s a matter of learning the technique again and bulking up.
Philosophy
It’s been about 3 years total of lifting. For me, I think it comes down to a few core tenets:
- Intensity: pushing it every lift, going for partials, dropsets, etc. as needed to get the most out of a set
- Consistency: after missing more than 3 days, I can feel a noticeable difference in strength, maybe a 1-2% decrease. Over time though, it gradually gets worse and takes longer to rebuild
- Diet: I eat whatever at this point to maintain/gain weight, but I want to be more conscious of tracking calories/protein in 2026 (or whenever I move out) to see if there’s a difference
- Sleep: if I get less than 5 hours of sleep, there’s a 75% chance I’m taking a rest day
- Feeling: I train based off of how I feel. What movements feel good, how much weight is needed to reach a range of 2 working sets for around 6-8 reps. There’s so much out there about a specific routine you have to do, but it doesn’t account for your body type or genetics. If it feels right, keep doing it, push yourself hard, and gains will follow
Delusion
My mindset has changed a lot since when I started lifting. Lately, I’ve adopted the idea that I can truly do anything given enough time, like I could be a doctor if I wanted to. This is what pushed me to go for 315, despite all the risks that come with it.
I want to expand this towards things outside of the gym. I’m comfortable here now, and I’ve come a long way from when I started. The first time I went to McComas by myself, I kept my head down, walked around the entire gym, and walked right back out because there were so many people and I got scared.
I have to believe that I can learn anything, work anywhere, and become anyone, given enough time. It’s always winnable, I just have to enjoy putting in the effort.