Who is TempleofGainz?

[templeofgainz]

Hello everybody from somewhere way down South.

I am templeofgainz. I enjoy lifting the heaviest shit my body can handle and forcing it to handle more. I am an aspiring powerlifter (first meet late this year!) who believes you can maintain an aesthetically pleasing physique while training for maximal strength.

Current stats
Age: freshly 24

Height: 6'2" (6'4" for the tinder hoes)

Weight & BF: fluctuating between 220-225. Shit-tier US Navy bodyfat calc and visual assesment of BF would put me around 25%

Lifts
Skwaat 325
Bench 220
Deadlift 275

My Story

I've been consistently training for the first time in my life. This August will mark 2 years of climbing out of the depressed, fat sack of shit of a shell known as my former self.

I had first toyed with a cheapo $100 Sears weight set in high school. You know the kind with the plastic weights filled with concrete. Obviously sub-optimal, I didnt stick with it long. My next run in with the iron was my sophomore year of college. We had a sick ass weight room and I got on a basic linear progression plan for the main compound lifts with some a e s t h e t i c assistance work. My form was pretty shit and I hit a wall around 4 or 5 months on all my lifts and just gave up.

After a stint in rehab for a drug induced psychotic episode, I gained some weight during and after (thanks processed carbs!) I had ballooned up to 250. Looking back I was definitely in the throws of episodic depression. Before the episode I had dropped from my major in college I had pretty much picked my first year of high school, didn't like any of my other options nearly as much, and then the episode forced me to drop out of college, where I moved back in with my mother who had gone overbearingly helicopter parent mode. I spent the post rehab months being depressed as shit about missing my former life, sneaking around to smoke pot like I was in high school again, and eating whatever the fuck I wanted.

Everything changed when I got arrested late that year. I was smoking pot in a public area when 12 pulled up, spent the night in jail and had my now ex-gf bail me out the next day when I promptly moved back to my college town to begin slangin' ounces to fund my weed habit and working shitty restaurant jobs. By that new years I was fed up of being a fat ass. I started lazy keto and walking with a weight vest and over a few months lost all my rehab weight and got down to 195. Well now I was skinny but had no muscle.

That August I picked up the weights again, started a basic Novice Linear Progression, started eating to grow, and started putting weight on the bar. I quickly blasted past my former PRs since I had fixed my form and had just a teeny bit of experience under my belt to go off. I haven't stopped lifting since.

After getting that peak Starting Strength body going on after a year, I decided I was too fluffy and needed to cut. I went from 25% to probably 15ish% at 225 and 200 respectively over the course of 4 months but my strength took a big hit. I was cutting too hard initially and stalled out, feeling like shit. I realized I didn't have a solid enough strength and muscle base (for me, dropping from intermediate weights to flirting between int/novice weights) and went too hard too fast. I could see my top 2 abs for the first time though so you gotta take what you can get.

I decided to use this year to really boost my strength to a good level and build some muscle mass. I am training for my first powerlifting meet later this year. I have been putting weight on my 1RM and rep maxes consistently using different programs molded around Western Periodization. I have hit a level of fluffiness I consider unacceptable in the last month, so now I am eating around 100-200cals over maintenance and just trying to hold this level of BF for the rest of the year as long as the lifts go up. If I do anymore serious bulking it will be in my 12 week meet prep. I already set the goal of gaining some serious strength this year, so I am not going to derail that with some half ass cut. I want to get my strength up and bust some PRs at whatever weight I go in at for the meet.

After I do this meet I am going to take a 2-3 weeks off of lifting for physical and mental recovery while doing some cardio and mobility shit to stay active and then test some rep maxes for a program and get to shredding. I AM going to get to 10-12%BF before competing again after the first meet.

What does any of this have to do with steroids?
I believe every single person whos trained long enough to know its something they dont want to give up has thought about juicing at some point. I started researching into it a few months ago to educate myself on them and have an informed opinion.
I don't plan on joining the dark side anytime soon but I am 100% planning on it in my future. First I got to get a few more years of training under my belt, tighten up my diet habits, get comfy in my brand new career to be making some decent guap, and lots of research. I figure if I start researching now I will be more than prepared in 2-3 years. I have no plans of being a competitive bodybuilder or anything. Just to maximize my strength and aesthetics for me.

I also have noticed most educated juicers know way more about the way the body works in regards to training and diet. I have learned more from various steroid forums than other fitness forums. You want to be the best, you have to surround yourself with the best.

Anyways, thanks for reading all this shit. Or not. I don't care. It's extremely therapeutic for me to remind myself how far I've come in such a short time every once in awhile.

-TempleofGainz

[Charlie67]

Welcome to the forum, great intro!

Nice to meet you.

C-

[brazey]

Welcome

[Tigershark]

Welcome.

[JKW]

I agree that is a good intro! Glad to see you overcame adversity and got it together. Any help you need the guys here are great and understanding.

[timothy5983]

Welcome!

[grahamd1]

Overcome and conquer them goals! Welcome, man.

[clarky.]

Welcome to the forum.