First Blog

Hey all!,

Finally getting into the blog game. I have been doing my training logs at SouthCarolinaBarbell.com and Elitefts.com for years now Some know me, some may not so I will give you a brief history. I have been powerlifting for 10 years and have been to the top of 275lb class. I did not start at 275lb nor did I end there. I started at 192lb back in 1998 and over the years worked up to a portly 305! It was at the 308lb class that I was trying to cap off a nice runn of great meets. My best total is 2562 in both the 275lb and 308lb class. That comprised of a 1124 squat, 744 bench and a 722 deadlift as my best lift.

During late '06 and '07, I had a string of injuries first with a partial tricep tear, followed by a severe quad and tendon sprain, followed by a hamstring/glute tear. I fought through all of these trying to finish off my lifting career as 10 years had wore me down. In August of '07, I completely tore off the sprained quad tendon along with the middle quad and outter quad while trying to squat 1205lb. You can watch it on youtybe.com if you like. Look up Marc Bartley 1205 dump. It's a little gruesome, but I make more out of it then it was. You might want to turn the volume down.

After that I spent 2 months at the house basically doped up unable to really move. It was during this time, I realized how many friends and people that loved me who showed up, brought food(which I could not eat for the first two weeks) and just stopped by to keep me company! Everyday is trully a great day to be alive and we are blessed to be who we are and have the opportunities we have.

I had already decided before the meet that no matter what I was going to take a break from powerlifting to lost weight and get all my life in order since for 10 years I had devoted my life powerlifting. You know when it is time. I just think I would go out that way! It's fine though, I probablly still would have done the meet already knowing the outcome.

Then the next chapter began writing itself. I enlisted another Elite contributor and bodybuilder/diet specialist shelbystarnes@troponinnutrition.com . He gladly helped me through a lot of things about carb cycling and nutrition that I thought i knew but not nearlly as well as I thought. My first goals were 235 and 10% bodyfat. I reached that about 5 weeks ago. Now, my obsession is get it to 6 or 7%. My weight is down to 223 or so at 9%. My best guess is 205-210lb right now to make that. The end time frame is August 31 but this is the second or third time I have changed my goals along the way so it may be more after I meet that goal.

In order to do this, I had to be strict with diet, of course, but I also had to do cardio which was very difficult in the beginning because of the healing leg and I hate cardio. Over the years, I had eliminated it until about 2005 when I realized that I had to do some in order to maintain a decent volume level while training so I did the Prowler twice a week for a 1/3 lap around the gym with about a 100lbs on it. I kept this up for a year or two and it greatly imporved my training volume and weights.

After I got to walking again without crutches and starting rehabbin myself, I realized I had to start incorporating it to make good weight loss progress because the diet had slowed the weight loss down to a crawl. So I started with some bike for 10-20 minutes. I graduated to the setpmill and 30 mins twice a day and thought that was great. Shelby promptly let me know that was not going to work with the amount of fat I had and the unreasonable time frame I thought I could do this in. Well, double 30s turned into double 45s into 60/30 into where I am now, a 60 and 50 minute session everyday for 6 out of the 7 days in a week! And this just to meet 10% by August. So for the past two months, I have been doing stepmill/stairmaster twice a day and sled/prowler on the weekends for cardio.

My training is still powerlifting oriented, I did not and could not go back to the bb style of training that I gave up in 1998. It built a decent base from 13 to age 30 but never really got me anywhere or reached any real goals. Now, I have fused the two togther and made it work which is where I am at now and this blog will begin. Somedays, I got it and somedays I get hammered by powerlifting but I hang in there and that will be the basis of this blog. How to hang in there and find a way through training, nutrition and life!!

Thanks for reading.
The Spud