As I celebrate my 40th year without New Year’s resolutions and no desire to reinvent myself as a better person, my training could absolutely use a fresh start.
For the entirety of 2025, I found myself dealing with two incredibly uncharacteristic variables that I had never had to deal with before. The first was that my enthusiasm for competing in Powerlifting was just gone. A major reason for this was the diagnosis of osteoarthritis in both of my elbows in January 2025. My right one has been a brutal issue to deal with for months at a time. It took me a good part of the year to figure out the stuff that really flares it up and some modalities to address the pain and swelling associated with that. I have a pretty good handle on it now, but this shit will just randomly suck for no reason whatsoever, and it basically halts any serious/heavy training I have planned. The other issue I experienced all year was a weird inconsistency with training in general. All year, I was able to get two hard training days a week. Unfortunately for me, if I don’t have at least four hard days and several smaller workouts throughout the week, my performance declines significantly. I have no real excuse for this, I just didn’t want to do it most days. Which is weird for me because I have been lifting weights since I was 9 years old, and the only reason I am any good at it at all is that I have always been more consistent than everyone else. But that drive literally just evaporated overnight. This is the emotional equivalent of dad going to the store for cigarettes and never coming back.
What were the results of all of this? A year of utter limp-wristed bullshit that I just reserved to myself as “the way things are now?” 2025 was the first year I have not competed in a strength sport since 2005. If I count other sports as well, it might be the first year I haven’t competed in anything since I was able to walk.
Dumb. This is all dumb and I am also dumb.
The word moving forward: consistency. I need to get back into training consistently and gain a little momentum here. Training sessions stack up. Even bad training session can lead to better ones as long as you keep showing up to them. There are a few meets I want to do this year to quailfy for the 2027 Arnold Sports Festival. I won the RAW challenge as a junior 20 years ago. It would be super cool to come back and win a masters level competion too.
So, that’s all. No new resolutions. I just need to get back to what I have always done and get back on track for everything that was derailed last year.