Well, it's that time of year again...to take stock of the foregone
one.
2007 has been a mixed one for me. I've hit 315 lbs. on the bench
press, but sustained a serious elbow injury while doing chin-
ups...I've lost 20 lbs. in four months, only to have gained it all
back in another nine...I have successfully adopted exercises like the
deadlift and the squat, but that leaves my already-bad back even
weaker for jogging...my right arm is now at a full 18 inches, but my
left has atrophied to somewhere between 17.5 and 17 due to that elbow
injury...I can do bent-over lateral raises with 40-lb. dumbbells and
curl 50-lb. dumbells (seated, too), but I have chronic, if irregular,
small aches and pains in the left elbow and left shoulder...I was even
making good gains in flexibility, being able to do the toe-touch with
my palms for minutes at a time -- but then I stopped stretching out as
my gym routine changed....
2007 has been my first year of continuously working out (save for a
month or two off for one reason or another) since 1998...and it's been
a funny experience: I feel alternately young as ever and older than
ever! Mysterious aches and pains make their first acquaintances,
while old ones renew theirs, yet by some indices I've never been
stronger. I've finally adopted protein powders and creatine, given
this new sense of my mortality, my vulnerability, but I cannot say for
certain that I've got more than an extra rep or two out of such
supplementation, if anything. My chances with the ladies remain at
7:3 (a solid 9:1 for Asian females), but I haven't been as
uninterested in pussy since undergoing chicken pox in third grade.
Now I don't know what to make of all that, but I do know what my goals
for 2008 are:
405-lbs. on the bench press
335-lbs. on the squat and deadlift
reattain a perfect split as well as a perfect toe-touch (sustained, of
course)
improve my all-out one-miler from eight minutes to seven, maybe even
back to six-something
train for a respectable placing in the half-marathon
a six-pack, if not an eight-pack (after I spend January through March
rescuing my four-pack)
getting back down to 180-200 lbs.
all of which means lots more sleep and a better diet
I'll post progress pics when I'm worthy of good studio-quality
photos. Heck, I might even take up boxing or wrestling, finally, at
the age of 36, or get back into martial arts after a near decades-long
hiatus.
Come on, 2008. It ain't that tough an act to follow!
The Year in Review -- And More Resolutions for Another 
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