Getting prepared for next season while at home

by: Bryce Arnold
​
For my long-term project, I chose to document my progress in my weightlifting. This is a log of what lifts I’m doing, how much I lift at the start, and again at the end. The lifts I have been doing are bench press, lat pulls, calf raises, curls, and squats. The sets for all lifts except for calf raises and curls are 10-8-6 reps, and they increase by 10l bs every set. For calf raises, I do 12-14-16 reps of the same weight, and for curls I do 3x10 reps of the same weight. 

    I chose to do this because I want to start to get ready for the college wrestling season. I know that at the next level, everyone is going to be much stronger than they were in high school, and that’s something I need to be prepared for. This is a big deal for me because I am moving up in weight (from 113 lbs to 125). This puts me way behind all the other people who are cutting huge amounts of weight to make it to 125 lbs, so I have my work cut out for me. 

So far, I have been making steady progress in all my lifts. In the bench press, I increased 20lbs (I started at 115lbs for my 1st set of 10 and I’m at 135lbs right now) as well as in my squat (165lbs for my 1st set of 10 to 185lbs). I also went up 10lbs in lat pulls (90lbs for my 1st set of 10 to 100lbs). 

I have learned that this won’t be easy. Doing these lifts 3 times a week really takes a toll on your body, and sometimes it’s hard to get myself to do it. I still do it, though, and hopefully this will pay off once the next season rolls around. I have no specific goals for next week, but I want to make no excuses and shortcuts. I want to be able to say that I put 100% effort into every lift, and then I will be proud of myself.