The last few weeks of training have been some of the best of my life; learning a lot, making progress along with the entire team getting better. Great vibes with the team, and everyone is pushing and making progress. We had some time off for Christmas, etc., but we have been getting after it for the last 2months + since. And I can’t express how much I love the training vibes right now. I didn’t even want to go to the Arnold due to missing time with the crew.

I’m not going to give a super-detailed report of the last three weeks of training but an overview. This is for no other reason than I want to keep moving forward and don’t remember precisely everything I’ve done, but here are the basics.

*SSB for squats

*Wagon wheels for deadlifts

*Incline bench followed by CG bench and bamboo bar bench

My top sets were the following before the deload last week, (I went a little bit lighter the weeks before):

625×5 in wraps on the SSB

585×5 on the wagon wheels

375×5 on the incline press

All of this felt good. I needed a deload after all of these reps. The volume and intensity have been real. So the following week, I took it easy.

While up at the Arnold, I opted to not go to the XPC I got a squat session in with Dave Hoff, Jimmy G, Anthony, Steph-fen, Val, Alex, and Chanel at the Dog House in Cbus.

I’ve been working on a wider stance, as discussed in previous training logs, so I had my briefs with me and wanted to work with Hoff some. The first thing he said was, “I’ve wanted to talk to you more about this as we have in the past, but you should be squatting 1230, but you have to widen your stance out.” He read my mind, so we worked on it.

I widened out quite a bit with Dave’s instruction, and each set felt better. I know as I am much bigger this was a necessary move. I can tell you there’s no way I would have went this wide if I wasn’t encouraged to do so. I ended at just under 1000lbs and was happy considering I haven’t went over 625 since December. And it felt good, so huge thanks to Dave and the crew for the help, the wraps (Steffene) and the back spots from Anthony.

I’m back home now and super motivated to train and try some new things while getting back into my Inzer Gear. Another suggestion Dave had for me years back was to try some different set-ups on the bench. My back history has been a limiting factor, so I haven’t ‘tucked’ my legs in about eight years. Since I’m sort of starting over and experimenting, now is an excellent time to see how I feel this way. I used this stance slightly on Mondays’ session, and it felt pretty good, but it will be a while before I can get into a decent position.

I appreciate Dave working with me and helping me. It’s always good to have an outside eye.