First post

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my journey with power lifting.

I did bodybuilding in my late teens and early 20's and found that I enjoy lifting weights and getting strong. What's new now, in my early 40's, is that I am much stronger. A recent body fat composition test revealed that I am carrying 20 more pounds of MUSCLE than I did in my 20's. No doubt the years of starvation dieting to try to be thin took their toll back then.

I made decent strength gains back then but nothing like I have now been able to get, though I didn't think there was anything unusual about how much I could lift until one of the trainers at the gym (Gold's in Redmond) took me aside and pointed it out. He said a) what I can lift is already more than many people can do; and 2) therefore I have the aptitude to be a competitive lifter, either as a power lifter or Olympic. I got my trainer on board with this, and we changed my workouts around a bit to gear things more toward competitive lifting. For now I am just concentrating on gaining strength and maintaining good form in the standard power lifting lifts: dead lift, squat and bench press.

I'll keep track of my progress here, and relate any amusing anecdotes I have from my experiences.