Confessions of a Lapsed Weekend-Warrior

    As I have mentioned many times before here, the mid 90s were a rough time for me. I wasn't able to finish the education I wanted. I couldn't get a job. I had absolutely no social life. I was miserable. So, I decided to change up my life in any way I could. One of those ways was to take up weightlifting. I wasn't much of a jock or athlete in school, but I always thought I had the potential, if I had just found the right discipline. I was also getting a little hefty. I was over 180 pounds and pushing upwards. I started to look for exercise and health magazines.  I made some mistakes in picking a good one, but I found my way through. I had my mom get me a weight set for my birthday one year, since I was way too intimidated to join a gym.  There weren't too many around at the time, at least for those I knew about. When I had my first workout, I chose weights that were only about half the amount the routine recommended. I did this because I felt that I was too much a beginner to start with twenty pound weights. Also, my mom got me the wrong set.  It didn't have the full complement of weights I wanted.  To this day, I am still not sure she made an honest mistake or if she deliberately bought the cheaper set. Anyway, that night after my first workout, I could barely sleep I was so sore. Yes, I was that out of shape that six-and-ten pound dumbbells were almost too hard for me. I managed to get up to twenty pounds in a few weeks. A year or so later, give or take, I was benching 100 pounds.  Okay, it was two fifty pound dumbbells, but that is still equivalent. Fortunately, I was able to get more weights as my maximums increased.  Since I had nothing else to do, I was able to workout whenever I wanted. I was getting stronger, but I wasn't getting big. I either wasn't eating enough or pushing myself hard enough. (It doesn't really look like it, but I do have a fairly high metabolism.) Then, my mom forced me to open my store. This meant that I had to make changes in my routine. I was getting in too late to exercise after work, and still eat and sleep properly. I was forced to limit my workouts to the weekends, with the occasional light morning routine before work. Unfortunately, I would have to give up those workouts, as it really isn't conducive to exercise in the morning at my current place. (Strangely, my last morning workout was the day before the 2003 flood that forced me to move and destroyed my old weight sets. I stopped lifting for over three months before I could get a new set.  I've since added a few more plates to those.) Then, I was forced to go to work six days a week. This would further limit my workouts to one day a week, not counting holidays and the occasional early quitting time. Still, I managed to work my way up to a 120 pound unilateral dumbbell press, which is almost equivalent to a 250 pound bench press. I was supplementing a little to help out, but I had to stop most of it when my favorite brand stopped making the products and the cost of others were a little too much.  Still, I continued the best I could. A few years ago, things started to change. Maybe I was just getting older. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the pandemic. Whatever, I just couldn't lift as much any more. I was cutting back on the weight because I was so tired some days. I didn't feel safe lifting heavy weights over my head in that condition. I don't think I've lifted 100 pounds in over a year, perhaps. I've even skipped a few sessions already this year due to the weather. (Because of my sensitive skin, I definitely have to wash any day I work out. If it is too cold or for any other reason that the water might go off, I usually don't work out. This is the same reason I didn't have to change clothes for high school PE, and not just because I was uncomfortable undressing in front of the other boys who were way more developed than me at the time, even though I was technically older than most of them. Really, that is the reason.) I have gone back to the lighter ten-and-twenty pound weights I was using when I first started out so far this year. I am aiming for endurance and maintaining what I currently have while keeping my weight around 170, but that isn't helping much. I've noticed some of my pants getting a little tighter and my stomach pooching out beyond my chest more frequently. One of the reasons why I did my "100" rep bodyweight challenges last year was to prove that I still had to ability to do so, even when my regular routines were suffering. I was going to implement so of those routines at work to assist my weekend workouts, but I never seem to be able to find the time.  Ab crunches being the exception. I can still easily pull out 120 of those at a time. I bet I would have great abs if I could ever get my total body fat under 10%. An impossibility, but knowing that it might be possible is enough to keep me going. If I ever had more help, such as a gym, a trainer, workout partners, and enough food to build up muscle, I have a feeling I could actually be a beefy jock.  While that probably will never happen, I just hope to get back into a better routine.  And soon.