Sweet 70

Dear Emma,

I finally hit my targeted weight of 70kg... That's a 10kg increase from my original 60kg bodyweight before I started gymin. Hard to imagine it already been 5 long years since I first started doing my 1st pushup in July 2009.

There's definitely been good days, bad days and really bad days during this 5 long years of sweating blood while pumping iron. Injuries come and go. I injured my tricep, shoulder and even spine. But that's all part of the parcel of this discipline...

Looking back, my motivating for working out definitely have changed through the years. From the initial gain stronger body for running and putting some meat into my upper body to gaining a acceptable strength ratio in my lifts. I started with a classical bodyweight workout I got via Scooby's youtube videos. Then I got exposed to the mental and spirtual exercise via Pilates and Yoga. I made some great progress during my 1st 2 years putting on 5 kgs before plateauing for 1.5 year.

My working career and mating attempt went down the tube during that period... I however stumbled across power lifting (Starting Strength) and decided to try something new to break the plateau. I made some progress in terms of weights I could lift (and gained 2.5 kg) before finally injuring my lower spine courtesy the deadlift.

Took some time off heavy weight and attempt to further improve my skill in Pilates by taking Pilates instructor course. Learnt a lot from the course, but the most important lesson learnt was I'm no instructor material. I returned to power lifting but found my strength pummel quite a lot compared to my peak before I got injured. Slowly rebuild my strength via Wendler 5-3-1 but my lack of discipline to follow the program made my progress really slow. I took a month of it due to my US trip before deciding to restart my whole power lifting training from ground zero via Starting Strength. Almost hit my peak again and walah... I finally achieved my magic 70kg body weight.

So where do I go from here? To be honest, I'm not so sure myself. I'm considering taking another break from power lifting and venturing into a more all rounded workout. A little bit of strength, flexibility, balance, aerobics and core. While most people say the danger of training for everything is you might end up gaining nothing. But I think "gain" is depends on one's goal.

While I feel stronger especially after lifting weights, I do feel my body is heavier. My new fitness goal is to obtain a body that feels light. To feel light, one body must be strong and weight must be light. Hence a proper bodyweight-strength ratio is required. Also to feel light, proper movement patterns should be practised. I will be focusing more on bodyweight exercises to obtain the bodyweight-strength ratio as bodyweight exercises are a great indicator of how fit you are (Too fat or lack strength = little reps). Also I want to refocus more on Pilates to obtain at least the "Breathing", "Spine Elongation" and "Spine Articulation" aspect down. Also look to fix some muscle imbalance I develop in my body, mainly anterior and rear deltoids issue. Looking forward to this new journey....