Physique/Strength update before going to Japan.
Read below for more info/stats.
MUSIC:
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - motherfucker=redeemer
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - rocket falls on Rocket Falls
- OSCOB - a place beyond
- Nookie - Continental Drift
- Yabujin - PiNK WiNDOWS oG
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues
- 佐井好子 - 冬の地下道
- Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M.
STATS:
Height: 173cm | 5 feet 8 inches
Weight: ~72.5kg
Age: 24
If you want to know about my training history/development, check these two videos:
1. • How I Lost My Gym Moti...
2. • Everything I Knew Abou...
PREFACE:
The main reason I made this video is to compare my progress either a year or few from now.
As I started focusing on hypertrophy/bodybuilding training a few months ago, I actually normally wouldn't test my 1 rep maxes on these lifts as they can hinder the consistency of tonnage accumulation. However, I feel that this transition towards hypertrophy will mark a significant split in my lifting journey, so, as an ode to all the effort I put in over the past years, I want to conclude it by showcasing my current lifts and physique.
Moreover, I actually believe that I might get stronger purely by focusing on hypertrophy, possibly even stronger than if I kept on training with the same mindset I had before, which is something I would like to find out.
COMMENTARY ON THE LIFTS:
- Squat: 140kg ATG, raw (aka no belt or other equipment). I actually was extremely close to hitting the same lift already in spring, it was closer than the failed 140 ATG attempt in this video, but alas I failed and I was unable to repeat it for the longest time. Though I believe there were other moments throughout the year where I was definitely capable of hitting it earlier than now.
- Bench Press, 110kg raw: I've made great progress on bench already just through my hypertrophy training, where I've almost exclusively used only 90kg for each set with varying reps, so hitting 110 was a pleasant surprise, as it was a 7.5kg increase from the last time I maxed out.
The bar was quite slanted on the final rep, I even hit the bar against the J hook right away, either because my starting position was a bit off (hadn't benched at my home gym for a while), or because there is some kind of an imbalance that only shows up on such heavy weight.
Also, my butt didn't actually come off the bench, it usually looks very different when that happens. My glutes are just rather developed and they activated I suppose.
- Deadlift: The clip is from October, so its over 2 months old at the time of uploading. I stopped deadlifting at around the same time as an experiment to see if I can benefit from substituting it from a hypertrophy perspective. I feel like I've regardless gotten stronger on the deadlift based on a few surprising effortless PR sets I did after the first squat PR segment and an entire hip hinge/lower session after the squat. I couldn't get a newer clip though as I'm not recovered yet and I can't wait much longer with this video.
- Physique:
This was after a few months of hypertrophy focused training, and some muscle groups, especially biceps, have already made noticeable progress.
I'd say that my current fat% is "mid-bulk", meaning that if I did another proper bulk, there wouldn't be much room left before I'd have to start a cutting phase, which I might actually do for the first time in my life next year, though I'd also really like to see what I can do if I focused on hypertrophy with sufficient calories for an entire year as well.
I'm very happy and satisfied with my current physique as well as lifts, but its fun to see where I can still go from here, and I feel like I have so many gains still left on the table due to never having done proper long-term hypertrophy programming like I'm doing now. I'm glad because I'll most likely do some form of lifting or bodybuilding for the rest of my life.
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