A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

Twelve weeks ago I began doing the Pure Steel workouts with Matt on Tuesday nights.  Tonight that program culminated in an attempt – two actually – at bench pressing 220 pounds, which would have been a personal record.

Would have been.

My warm up lifts were all strong, even the 205 felt great, but when I got 220 in my hands, I was too slow bringing it down… I got it up about half way, then hit the brick wall.  On my second attempt, I eliminated the error of bringing the weight down too slow, but still hit the brick wall halfway up.

The good news: I did get 215 last week and have definitely gained (or regained) quite a bit of strength over these last 12 weeks.  My physique has definitely improved, I have even lost a few pounds (6) while regaining this muscle and strength.  After another round of Pure Steel, I should be able to bench my weight – which I hope will come down a few more pounds in the coming weeks. Additionally, I’ve been running the mile to and from TWR on lifting nights (I wouldn’t dare do that on the other nights – the cross training takes a lot out of me).

Today I got a great compliment on how I look from someone I don’t see too often – my boss.  That felt awesome!  I’m playing another show out this week and then no more shows for a month, which will give us time to gear up with new tunes and new attitude, and enable me to get into even better shape for summer shows!  I hope to get some of my TWR friends to some of our shows this summer – we always have a blast… I’m not a marketing guru though, so I’ll have to put a bit more effort into that in the future.

Hope to see you at the gym soon!