2023 - Fittest Year Yet?

If you’re following along with my fitness journey, you will already know about the initial challenges I faced in achieving my fitness goals. I am not going to bore you with yet another resilience story. Maybe I will.. you are going to find out.

2023 has been the most enriching fitness journey of my life. It was calculated. It was measured. It was strategic. All in all, I would brag that it was pretty well executed. One of the biggest life lessons I learned after coming to the US was to go “ALL IN” or nothing. This was that year.

Despite my poor track record with lower back injuries and knee mobility issues, I still found solutions that worked for me to keep moving forward. I am still grounded. There might come a time in the near future that would require me to start from scratch. But, I have a working framework that would help me scale my progress no matter the circumstance. I will figure out a way.

Enough zig-zagging - here are my results:

Let us look at my weight progress over the last year first.

Abs are made in the Kitchen?

It took me great discipline to gain close to 10lbs over the past year.

Then comes the SQUAT, BENCH, DEADLIFT!

Well, DAMN! The Deadlift progress has been phenomenal!

DEADLIFT.

Deadlifts: I maxed out with a personal best of 340 lbs - 2X my body weight.

That is quite an achievement given that, I just started deadlifting in February.

SQUAT.

Squats: I maxed out at 235 lbs - 1.4X my body weight.

Again, I am proud of this feat given my knee mobility issues. Collagen supplementation definitely did work wonders in helping me achieve this goal.

BENCHPRESS.

Benchpress: This was and is still kind of a weak point. I am strategizing a way to improve my bench in 2024. The current max is positioned at 215 lbs.

My bros were obviously my biggest fans. Without their guidance, I wouldn’t be where I am today. However, I did add a little bit of flavor to “what works for me” to keep inching forward 2.5 lbs at a time.

Many people, including doctors, told me I could not do what I can do today.

I feel grateful to have proven them wrong! 2023 - signing out.