i <3 the weight

it's funny, whenever i read about people doing stuff (like the busy lifestyle of james bond or steve martin or such) i wonder: when do they have time to lift?

it's a fundamental part of my life now, and i've been making good progress -- sort of.

i've finally put my money where my mind is and actually used mcrobert's abbreviated style of training. i'm lifting twice a week for double or triple sets and getting done in an hour. as usual, my bench press is lagging, but my squat is going amazingly well.

i'm aiming for a double or triple set of 5x300. last night i did 3x5x290, and on monday i did 3x5x285. i'll be unsurprised if I reach my goal by next thursday.

on the one hand, that's great: i'm reaching a goal, and it's a nice round number like 300. on the other hand, i should be at 400 by now, especially with my genetics. still, i won't complain. it's taken longer than it should have to get me to where i am, but i learned a thing or two along the way.

It's said that the problem with looking only backwards is that you never see what's in front of you or even what's under your feet. But that's a misstatement of the problem. The real danger lies with fixing your gaze in any particular direction: up, down, behind, ahead. We've got to look in all directions, from all perspectives.

this afternoon, while i was thinking -- again -- about my upcoming set of 300, it dawned on me: this week I squatted 290 for 15 reps (yeah, not continuous, and yeah, some of them didn't really count).

i beat my previous best by 5 pounds and 14 reps.