You Are Not Born Strong - You Must Become Strong

I always find it funny when people assume that a person is just born a certain way. Sometimes we just assume a person is naturally lean because they are lean most of the time, or they are naturally strong because they lift a lot of weight in the gym, or they can eat a lot of food because they have a fast metabolism.

People make these judgements or assumptions because they only see part of the picture which is the final result, they don't see how that picture became what it is, what was involved in the making of that final result.

I stay under 10% body fat all year round but that does not make me naturally lean. It takes commitment to my diet and making sure I burn plenty of calories each day with exercise. I can get fat just like anyone else.

People tell me my strength is only because I have a lot of muscle on me, did they stop to think where I got the muscle from. Was this muscle always there? Did it just magically appear overnight? Or maybe it has taken years of pushing myself at the gym way beyond where most people are comfortable to venture. Muscle is a byproduct of strength, strength is a byproduct of effort.

Strict Shoulder Press PR of 195 x 5 Reps at Body Weight of 197 Pounds

Last week I did a 7 rep set strict press at 185 pounds, so today during my Shoudler CrossFit Class, I thought I would try to lift right around my body weight and see how many I could get. I was shooting for 5 reps and low and behold I got it :) I figure I have a 210-215 single rep max right about now which should beat my previous 205 Personal Best Strict Shoulder Press...

Full Week of Workout Videos - Tuesday Shoulders CrossFit

47 minutes - 522 Calories - Average Heart Rate 136 - Max Heart Rate 181.

• Garmin Heart Rate Monitor Session Link

Location: CrossFit Langley

Warmup & Mobility

Strength:

• Front Shoulder Press - 135 lbs x3
• Front Shoulder Press - 155 lbs x3
• Front Shoulder Press - 175 lbs x3
• Front Shoulder Press - 185 lbs x3
• Front Shoulder Press - 195 lbs x1

METCON:

• 4 Rounds
• 12 Upright Rows using straight bar with 135 lbs
• 10 Pushups
• 10 Situps

New Strict Press PR of 205 Pounds at Lower Body Weight of 191

A couple weeks back I posted an excited update about my 200 Pound Shoulder Press PR, when I was 193 pounds. Skip ahead two weeks and I ramped my Shoulder Press up by 5 pounds to 205 pounds while dropping 2 pounds of body weight coming in at 191 pounds!

Who says you can't get stronger while cutting? It's not easy but you can make small gains if you keep the intensity up.

Shoulder Press PR - 200 Pounds x 1 Rep - 45 Years Old @ 193 Pounds

Another PR this week and while I am slowly cutting weight. Just goes to show that if you keep pushing yourself and train hard like any other day, you will get stronger!

My goal has been to hit a 200 pounds Shoulder Press and today I got it, mind you when I originally came up with this goal is was a about 15-20 pounds lighter, that said, a lot of this new added muscle weight is in my legs which doesn't help with the strict shoulder press in any way ;)

Still super happy to hit 200 pounds which on this day was 7 pounds over my body weight.

You can see how this workout effected my heart rate and how many calories I burned by clicking on this link: