Pardon a little self-indulgent rambling. It’s zipping around my brain and I wanted to write it down… not that I expect you to care about it, but it’s just part of my recording of my journey in life.

Tomorrow begins “week 3” of my 3rd cycle on the Wender 5/3/1 program. This is the “heavy” week, where you push further, deep deeper, and set new personal records. It’s probably my favorite week of the program.

I’m giddy about tomorrow’s workout. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s Press day and I’ll be pressing 130#. Yeah I know, not a ton of weight, but big for me. I think what has me more fired up is that I was supposed to do 125 but accidentally did that last workout and knocked it out of the park. So I’m really fired up for tomorrow. Kinda crazy… never found myself so fired up about lifting things up and putting them down.

Then there’s deadlifting, which I really enjoy. Apparently Dave Tate hates the deadlift, but used that as a way to get lots of useful advice from other lifters about deadlifting. Some really good tips in the article, which I’ll probably put to use in Friday’s deadlift workout.

But what I’m really looking forward to is the next cycle. I can’t help but think about it now because the numbers are all there, just out of reach. And how I perform this “week” sets the stage for the next cycle.

The work weights will have me pressing 135. That’ll be cool because that’ll be my first venturing into 45# plates with my pressing. It’s a small milestone, but a cool one.

Deadlifting will just get me closer to 300# working weight. Nothing necessarily special, just progress.

Bench press will have the work weight be 200#. That’s another milestone, to break the 200# mark. 225 will be cooler, because that’ll be 2 45# plates, but to get to 225 you have to go through 200… and 200 is cool enough in and of itself.

And squats. This will be the big one. Before I did Wendler I was doing PPNP and got up to 230# but my form was horrid. I dropped back and have been slowly working my way back up. This week I actually will do 230. Next cycle, I finally break back into PR territory with my squats.

So next cycle will be interesting for me, because just about everything will be hitting some sort of milestone.

I enjoy seeing the results of my labor. I see the physical results of how my body looks, how my clothing fits (had to buy new jeans because my thighs and butt couldn’t fit into my old jeans any more… in a good way!). I do enjoy being strong, and stronger than I’ve ever been. Being strong is useful. Heck… I just got my medical profile from the life insurance exam and my results are stellar.

If my martial arts situation didn’t become what it was, I wouldn’t have gone back to lifting because I needed some sort of exercise. If it wasn’t for being ill and aimlessly browsing the web and seeing a video on the Beast Skills website, I never would have learned about Wendler 5/3/1 and then Mark Rippetoe. I would have continued to lift in the same “bodybuilding” aimless way I always did and probably stopped after a couple more months of minimal progress. But with these plans? Geez… I’m seeing progress unlike I’ve ever seen in my life. It keeps the motivation high, it keeps me going back to the gym. Tho, it’s well possible that just being a lot older and having a lot more self-discipline in life helps too. But certainly it’s seeing the results that keep me going.

I’m really enjoying this part of my life’s journey.

It may end tomorrow. I may lose interest before I’ve completed a year at it. Who knows what will happen. I’ll just take it day by day and enjoy it, and take from it whatever lessons it teaches me (and there’ve been a lot, so far).