Poolcue

Well Poolcue, I think that you maybe in the right place for knowledge, advice and tips, though what YOU can bring to people here - with your journey and motivation on how you literally transformed your body and your life is WAY beyond anything we could give to you. And I thank you for sharing your thoughts and ramblings that will keep others dedicated, inspired and on the path to success.

You hit the nail on the head. You have one shot. Life is TOO short. Challenges - physically, mentally and emotionally reach us everyday and it is a skill to turn these into opportunities to win. And that's what I know you are capable of. From our FB chats on your dedication to purist approach I am exceptionally impressed. Well done mate!

Back to the gym today. For some reason I felt particularly bold and strong this morning and decided to try and up my dead lift PB. I managed to force it up to 135KG, my PB. I had actually ran for 45 minutes and done several other exercises before I had a go at it. I will be having a go at 140KG tommorow morning prior to doing anything else. I have no idea where this strength has come from.

Also training this afternoon in my local boxing club to get a major sweat on. I am working hard at this, trying to ramp up my self confidence which is just horrendous. It's my major downfall and I don't think it will ever change until I win something or do something of note, certainly in relation to my fitness goals. Spending tonight reading up on dead lift technique to ensure I get that 140KG!

I'm not usually one for PB's. I have never before walked into train and thought "I'm going to smash my PB today". I prefer to go and enjoy my time training, making sure I hit the exercises I want without putting pressure on myself. However, I was pushed into exploring what my dead lift PB would be yesterday by a gym friend of mine. Without ever having looked at technique or done anything remotely heavy on a dead lift before I squeezed out a 135KG.

From that I thought to myself that there must have been improvements to be made. Technique, form, breathing, grip must be extremely important. I spent a bit of time reading over some techniques last night and had some practice runs of what I thought would be a comfortable approach for me. Trained this morning, used the technique I had learned, pulled a 160KG

Good Monday so far! Delighted with that and may be changing my attitude to personal bests. Who knows if I keep beating it, it may raise my self confidence!

Back on for the first time since Monday. It has been night shift week so fitting in training has been difficult. Managed to fit in my usual two boxing strength and conditioning classes on Tuesday and Thursday. As I am sure you can imagine, a circuit of the most ridiculous proportions two times a week! Wednesday was a token gym effort to be honest, just difficult to get out of the "bleurgggh" tiredness!

Back on it today. One hour of cardio consisting of 20 mins bike @ 110 RPM, 20 mins treadmill @ 7MPH, 10 minutes blast of cross trainer. Talked too much nonsense today to keep a check on my workout so I just kept my mind of keeping my form correct for my pull ups and dips. The usual ab session followed! Had some snaps taken to see how the transformation is coming along, absolutely delighted. Tommorow will be a PB day, training with my mate who pushes me along!

Certainly going for the 165KG dead lift, i'll be delighted if I can pull that! Onwards and upwards before Christmas!

Wow I just realized that I hadn't updated this blog since the middle of December. It has been quite a busy festive season with work and the usual festivities.

I am not entirely sure what 2012 holds for me in both a personal and working level. I have been toying with a business idea for some time now and I think this year is maybe the time to get it moving and certainly begin to build the foundations for the venture. I will continue to push towards the goals of a strong, lean and ripped physique. The amount of advancement that I made during 2011 simply by asking for advice was really promising.

I feel as if I could make several more positive tweaks to my diet to help me progress the physique goals even further. I am quite happy with my current supplement stack if you will however I a sure that could do with some tweaks also. I have raised my dead lift PB to 165KG over the festive season so I am delighted to be making progress on that front.

Onwards and upwards to 2012 and the new challenges that it will undoubtedly bring!