The Largest Red

So I ended up skipping last week's post kind of on accident. I had most of the post saved as a draft but I guess just forgot to publish it to the site. I did not realize this until Wednesday and figured it was too late so I just decided to do a double duty post this week. Personal Updates There is a pretty decent amount of stuff to catch up on from a personal updates perspective, but I will start off with lifting because that has been a persistent theme in these posts somewhat accidentally. I finally hit 315 on cleans which is a big milestone for me at least. I had failed it about two months ago when I did my max test prior to beach week and was happy to get three plates on the bar pretty solidly. I have maintained pretty good health so far since I have moved to campus, and my lifts are progressing quite nicely. I hit 355 on bench for a single and 275 for a speedy 9 reps this past week which I believe is a PR. I have two more days this coming week of lifting down here and then I wi...

This week was the first weekend since I have moved into the Princeton area that I was able to just stay in the area and hang out with friends which turned out pretty nice. Personal Updates Lifting-wise, my hands actually healed up pretty nicely by Monday and I was able to do every lift this week. We did the run test on Wednesday and that went surprisingly well. I think this is the earliest in the summer I have ever been able to run and pass our conditioning test, being almost a full month away from the start of camp and basically being done for the summer more or less as far as pre-season stressors. It definitely feels good to know that I can miss a lift now if I am feeling a bit beat up or in need of a break. I need to plan out the next few weeks with lifts to try to potentially give myself a break at some point prior to camp when things really ramp up. I also was able to go bowling this week for the first time in quite a while. I consider myself a slightly above-average bowler but th...

Another slow week this week, not much changing or going on, just getting into a groove with workouts and meals and trying to build up my teammates and get us ready for the season. Today is also my mom's birthday and I was able to go home for a day and see her and the family which was nice. Personal Updates Regarding work, I started to ramp back up on the job that I have been working for the past year which has been a nice way to spend my time and make some money, as I only will have about a month left of doing that work. I also was able to connect with the other contact that I had had for a potential internship opportunity this past week which was great. I am not sure exactly what I will be doing or how much of my time it will take, but I am open to the experience and excited to see if it is something I may want to do post-graduation. Lift-wise this week I was able to stay pretty steadily where I have been with a minor setback on Wednesday. I sliced open both of my hands doing tug-...

I took last week off of posting due to the craziness of 4th of July weekend and the fact that I was not really settled in to my new living situation yet. I should be back to regular posting for the rest of the summer after this weekend. Personal Updates I am now fully moved out of my house for the first time since October, and it is very nice to have a change of setting. I was able to move into my room for the school year early which is really great for my summer workouts. I have done my covid tests and everything to be able to do workouts with my team on campus in the mornings and living up the street instead of an hour away at 6 am has made a huge difference. Last week we were doing heavy singles on squat and bench and I was somewhat pleased with the results, I did not get quite as heavy as I would have liked, hitting 345 on bench and 435 on squat, but still am happy that I am moving past my injuries. I am now getting into a groove of doing the lifts and runs with my teammates which ...

This week I did a lot better in the weight room, finally making some progress after a period of stagnation. At the same time, I definitely failed some of the other goals that I had set over the past two weeks, and so overall I think this week was a failure, but I know that it matters more how I recover and respond to this failure than the fact that I failed on its own. Personal Updates Like I said above, I was feeling much stronger in the weight room this past week than I have since the start of the year. I am feeling much better with respect to my injuries than I have since initially being hurt, although there still are some lingering problems with my hip that materialize with certain movements. I was able to push press 265 this week, hoping to hit 275 this coming week. I squatted 405 for my top set and am hoping to push that up as well for this week's cycle. On bench, I finally got back to hitting 315 for reps which was a big hurdle to get over. This coming week will be a hybrid ...

Another day another dollar. This week felt pretty slow, but I am enjoying the time that I have left at home and trying to see some friends because I really only have about a week and a half left here until I move down to Princeton for the summer. Personal Updates Regarding the daily challenge that I made for myself last week, I have been keeping up with it pretty solidly, although I took Sunday the 20th, father's day off. It was not really intentional but I think it was needed. I had weirdly tweaked something in my shoulder while stretching the day before and was still feeling some shoulder pain into Sunday and it was exacerbated by the pullups and pushups. I also crushed some hip bridges on Friday after my workout doing over 60 reps and so my glutes were still very sore. I was still able to my meditation and calf raises though. I think I will hold myself to completing the challenges each day for the remaining week and a half. I have also continued to improve in strength over the p...

This was definitely a slower week, did not have much to do for work and was able to get into reading and consuming some different sources of information that I had been putting off for a while which was nice.  Personal Updates So far I have had 5 full days of my challenge which includes daily pushups, pull-ups, band clamshells, calf raises, and meditation. It has been going well so far and I have yet to miss a day. It is different to get into the mindset that I will not miss any days and just to drop on the ground and do pushups or go outside and do pullups, or set aside time during the day to meditate, but I chose these five actions because they should each benefit me in something that I feel I am weak in. I am excited to see the progress that I will make after doing it for the remainder of the month and seeing whether or not I want to continue doing it for the summer. Lifts have been going decently well. I got some new pre-workout this week that I found through some sale on Insta...

Coming back from the short getaway to Myrtle was very nice as it seems that the world sort of returned to normal in my absence. I returned to the lifting of mask mandates and capacity limits for NJ which makes it a lot easier to be social and interact with people. Personal Updates I do not really have many updates regarding my body as I had maxed out before leaving for Myrtle and since then have just gotten into a rhythm of doing my programmed workouts for football which are definitely a change-up from what I had been doing for the past year. I am excited to get into this groove and start working out earlier so that I am ready to get the most out of the limited amount of time I have left being a part of this team. This paragraph is a little bit of cheating due to the fact that I am posting this a bit later than Sunday but I feel like it is important to post in order to give me an idea of when this started and to hold me accountable for this claim. I realized through encounters this wee...

After taking last week off I have a lot of potential topics to update on, but I will try to stick to the main ones so that this does not go on too long. Lifting Updates As has been the theme in these posts so far I will start off by talking about my body. Before I left for Myrtle Beach, I decided to do a max test for bench and squat to get a baseline going into the summer. After battling injuries in both my chest and hip for several months I definitely went through ups and downs. I think that I will now get into a more formal routine and get into football-specific shape doing agility and fieldwork as well as continuing to train the major lifts. I also think that I will start taking creatine again as I will be training consistently and it helps me to retain additional water especially as I am pushing myself in the heat and moving a lot of weight. My all-time max on bench was around 365, maybe a little higher, but I got hurt before I was able to test. At that time I was able to do 325/33...

This post will be relatively short as I will likely take the next week off from posting and have a larger post the following week that encompasses two weeks. Personal Updates This past week regarding my body I have planned to start prepping for a max out test prior to the last week of May because I will be away from gyms. I want to get a new baseline for my strength levels before going into the summer and I think this is the best time to do so. I have struggled with weird and random injuries and maybe taking a week off from the weights and doing strictly band and bodyweight work I will be set for the summer body-wise. I am excited to really get after it this summer and continue to get into great shape so I can finish out my football career strong and play at my best. I was also able to go down to Princeton and visit this weekend for graduation which was really nice. I got to see a lot of my friends that I have not seen in over a year and it was nice to see things opening up a bit more....