Once More. From The Top.

[Gary Gibson]

It's been a rough year or two. Lots of travel, a couple bouts of living in Mexico and then in Chile. A career change I hope is temporary. Bad habits that rode me down to under 150 lbs.

Now I'm back. I've restarted the very effective ARPwave therapy that restored my knee health and got me to recognize the deficiency I had in foot strength and muscle activation. No more need to drain my knees. I can train again without my joints getting beaten up.

I've been back to training for nearly three weeks and posting my results on Pendlay a Forum, but that place is riddled with bot posts and one just recently infected my training log again. So I figured I'd come crawling back here. Besides I have no intention of engaging in weightlifting again and feel more at home among enthusiastic squatters and benchers.

There is finally an upcoming meet just minutes from where I live: The USAPL Twin Cities Open in Mounds View. It's just far enough away -- in mid-August -- for me to get in a good ramp up to new heights in the 75-kilo class. Last time I was this weight my best low bar was around 360 lbs and my best sumo deadlift was over 440. I hope to do a high bar with even more weight this time in competition as well as conventional deadlift closer to 500 lbs. I don't care that much about my bench, but would be embarrassed by less than 100 kilos.

I started with a bench of 145x5 and a back squat of 185x5 three weeks ago on May 7 at 150 lbs. Here are today's numbers...

Bench Press
45x20x2
95x10
135x5
155x3x8

Back Squat, high heels, knee sleeves
45x10
135x5
185x3
225x2
245x1
255x1
265x1
225x2x6

Dumbbell Row, semi-supinated grip
55x8
80x5
90x8,5

Weight in a.m.: 158

[Adam Skillin]

Welcome back!

[Christopher John]

Gary, you were one of my favorite posters when I first started reading this forum. Glad to see you're alive and well and still lifting. Welcome back!

[stuffedsuperdud]

Holy crap it's Comrade Smolov! Is it time to start another 13x3 = 39 weeks of insanity?

[hbriem]

It's good to see you again Gary.

[bugbomb]

Gary! Awesome to have you posting here again.

[Gwyn Brookes]

Welcome back Gary! Great to have you back on the forum.

[elVarouza]

Welcome back, I liked reading your posts back in the day.

[JTC_MN]

A fellow Minna-snow-tan! I'm following along.

[Nick Klemetson]

Hi Gary. I'll likely be competing in this meet as well. It would be my first competition, and I am hoping for my numbers to be somewhat near yours, despite likely ending up in the 242 class.