Growing up I was always the unathletic kid. I hated exercise. It hurt, it wasn't fun, and I was awful at it. I was content sitting behind my computer playing Starcraft. As I grew I became fatter and weaker. My senior year of high school I was medically obese. Another thing happened my senior year though, something that changed my life forever. On September 11th 2001 my country was attacked. I immediately enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, albeit with a weight waver. I shipped out the day I turned 18.
Marine Corps boot camp, as a fat kid, was by far the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. Not only was it a physical challenge, but also an emotional one as I received the brunt of the Drill Instructor's attention since I was usually the one holding everyone back. Boot camp is hell for a fat kid. However, through sheer force of will I made it through without being held back and graduated with my platoon. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I was a completely different person both physically and mentally.
Throughout my time in the Marines I was an average physical performer, for a POG anyway. When my time in the Marines was done I fell back into my bad habits. A couple years later I realized I was starting to physically resemble the person I was in high school. I refused to go back to that miserable way of life. I started learning everything I could about exercise and nutrition and put it to work. I fell in love with weight lifting.
That was about 8 years ago. Since then I've done my fair share of training programs: Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler, PHAT by Layne Norton, P/P/L splits, and even the dreaded bro-splits. Throughout those years, at a height of 5'8", I've accomplished a 525lb deadlift, a 450lb box squat (I can no longer do regular squats due to a chronic hip injury), a 275lb bench press, and 31 pull-ups. I've done a 3xBW deadlift, a 2.5xBW box squat, and a 1.5xBW bench press. If you can't tell, my bench is my nemesis. And while running isn't my forte, I've run a 300m in 43 seconds. Oh, and I usually have six-pack abs year round. That last one might be a little vain, but as a former fat kid it's kind of fun.
I've also earned a Bachelor's degree in Exercise Science and have held various fitness coaching positions.
The training has been great, and I enjoy the lifestyle. Unfortunately, as the years went by the improvements waned. I began to fear I was reaching my natural genetic limits. My consistency, training, nutrition, and sleep were all good, but my strength and hypertrophy just weren't going anywhere anymore. Steroids aren't an option for me for health, moral, and occupational reasons. My answer was to train harder and to train more. At my peak I was in the gym for 2.5 hours 6 days a week. I trained brutally hard too. I went to failure on almost all of my lifts. Guess what? It didn't work.
I've scaled back a bit since then, but I still have the same general problem. I'm working to the point of exhaustion and I'm just not getting anywhere. The work is no longer providing any reward.
Enter Tactical Barbell. I ran across Tactical Barbell online and it initially caught my eye because it seemed to combine heavy weight training with cardiovascular conditioning. I'm interested in bringing up my conditioning for occupational performance and because I've got plenty of room to improve there. Then I heard about Tactical Barbell's concept of no muscular failure. The rule was there to provide extra energy for conditioning, but also as a tool to better adapt to your weight training and become stronger as a result. This was a completely different approach than the one I was using to attack my problem. Since what I was doing wasn't working I bought the books and here we are.
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