 Shoot, today's a sad day. It's over. I'm a failure. I quit. My world is shattering. The sky is falling. We're not allowed to have that E.O.R. type shit in here. I can't- I haven't been able to breathe through both my nostrils in six days, okay? The oxygen in my brain is low. What is going on into the mic like that? I want to let him know where I'm at. I coughed up blood. You ever coughed up blood? No, no, it's just because the tonsils get a little inflamed. You get a little boogie blood. Well, I've had boogie blood. You've never had boogie blood before? Yeah, see? A little boogie blood ain't scary. I failed. I'll tell you guys why I failed. Join along. Maybe wondering where the 705 deadlift is. Sometimes I think one of my best attributes as like a lifter and athlete, or even like a business owner, is the ability to pivot. And some may call that like soft or a failure or like not caring enough or something. But for me, it's just like in certain aspects of my life, I'm really good with rolling with the punches. So we had the de-load week and we were supposed to pull a PR. That was the goal that we built up three or four months with Coach Joe. Shout out to Coach Joe Stan at Game Day for helping me along this path. Wednesday or Thursday started to get a little sore throat. So I was like, all right, hit the cruise. I'm gonna take the day off, chill, see what happens. Try to rest up. One, I don't want to get the team sick. Two, I ain't no tough, fake, badass. I think if you're sick, one, it's just like literally a dickhead move to get people around you sick. Like, could I have deadlifted that day? Yeah, man. I probably could. But there's bigger picture things. So I don't want to get anyone in my gym sick. I don't want to get my employees sick. Thursday, still sore throat, a little bit of congestion. I'm coughing some shit up. Take it off. Friday, it starts to grow a little bit more in my chest and my face. I'm pretty sure I just had a bad cold, but I'm known to have sinus infections. I don't know if you guys ever had any of those, but it's not the worst thing. Like, I've been way sicker, but I don't even know if it contagious. I ain't a doctor. So again, I take it off. I hit up Seabass. We were talking. I was like, all right, man, we'll see what Saturday looks like. I may pull it up. I woke up Saturday and I swear my vision was like this. I couldn't breathe walking on my stairs got a little tight in my chest and my nose and live to lift another day. So we decided to kind of scratch the deadlift. It sucks. Part of like what I think a lot of people enjoy about powerlifting is the journey there and then like the end day to really push yourself and you're working, working, working, delayed gratification for a big PR, a big thing. I don't necessarily find satisfaction in that, but I wanted to do it because it's part of the culture. It's part of I do enjoy training. I enjoy sharing the journey with you guys, the lessons along the way. I'm not heartbroken over this. Am I a little disappointed? Sure. So I wake up Saturday, vision's real bad. Wake up Sunday, vision's even worse. I'm coughing, I'm lugeing everywhere. I literally stayed in bed Saturday, Sunday, didn't move an ounce. Just ordered smoothies and drank smoothies all day. So nutrition, sleep, everything's a little bit fucked. And who knows. So right now it's Tuesday. Yesterday I started to feel a little bit normal, at least I could see. Today I don't feel great, but I don't feel bad. So I'm going to get a super light just chest workout in and walk a little bit. As far as a PR deadlift is probably not in the books this month. It might be. I mean, if I feel absolutely dope tomorrow, who knows, maybe we come in here and pull. But eventually, as you taper for PRing, we need to keep our base level of fitness and strength while letting fatigue dissipate so we can perform our best. But if you wait too long, the reason people don't just like crush themselves with volume, take a month off and PR is because that level of fitness will also go down with the level of fatigue. And so for the level of fitness, obviously we're not prepared to do what we want to perform. So that's kind of where we're at now. Appreciate y'all following along. You know, I'm not exactly excited. This is because it's not the story I had in my mind, right? We always have these expectations. My expectation was I was going to pull a big PR at least 680 and then go off into our cut and get shredded again and bring you guys along on that journey, which we're still going to do. I'm probably going to start that this week. Tracking and a little bit of cardio and a more of a aesthetic bodybuilding style training, training, probably a little frequency, a little bit up. Training was really hard for powerlifting for me because those sessions take a lot out of me mentally and physically. And so four heavy lower body days is really difficult. upper body lacked, my cardio lacked even my diet and nutrition. My stress has just been through the roof as we have a big powerlifting meat coming. We got the Arnold with Avi coming. We got a couple clothing launches coming. So my place is pretty full. And again, those aren't excuses. You call me soft, you call me whatever you want. But to me, it's just how I pivot through life and I prioritize things. And to me, my team comes first, the gym comes first, good company comes first, and then my lifting and stuff's like way the fuck down here, you know, it's like priority six, seven. Yeah, my health matters. And that's why I decided to sleep. And that's why I want to lose a little bit of weight again and get back into the routine of regular cardio and just feel better. So that's where we stand. Call it the end of the deadlift. Call it the end of, you know, being strong. I should still be able to keep some of that deadlift strength through my body building training. I think I'm going to do two lower days a week. And I'll probably prioritize just like heavy singles, heavy triples on squatting deads, followed up by more hypertrophy stuff. So the volume will be down in terms of strength volume, the twos, the threes, the fives, but I'll hit something decently heavy. And then we'll go on a leg press, leg extension, lunges, try some newer things to kind of keep the variety up and have some fun. So that's where we stand. I'm not stoked on it. You're probably not stoked on it. What do they call it? Anti climactic. But that's life sometimes kids live to lift another day. I can pull PR a year from now or two years from now if I want. I am getting older by eight old yet. I ain't dead yet. So we're gonna continue push. So little chest workout today. And then we got a podcast busy week coming a bunch of a variety of content to we got some equipment reviews. I'm going to teach you guys how to build, you know, set up a platform for powerlifting some powerlifting behind the scenes. We got a bunch of visitors visiting in town the next two weeks. So it's gonna be chaos. Plus the vlogs when we go to Arnold and watch Abby absolutely smash it. We'll probably cover some of her training as well leading up to this meet. She's on an absolute tear right now prepping. So stay tuned to that. We're just gonna hit like a couple sets, probably just one set here. Get a little pump, little shoulder set to pump, tricep to pump. Just get some blood flowing again, you know. When you're getting sick, you don't want to come in and follow X's and O's. We're just gonna continue going. I'll walk. I know a bit of a random video you all, but just want to update you on where my head is at. What's been happening last week. We got so much going on. I can't even tell you. So I know that sounds whatever YouTube ever says it gives you to click on the next video, but we just got a lot going on. So I'm trying to gather my thoughts as a business owner, as a boss, as a meat director, as a designer. A lot of hats going on, a lot of hats I'm wearing, a lot of balls I'm juggling. So stay tuned. So podcast over this. Check that out. 50% facts every Wednesday and Friday. If you guys were into podcasts on your travels, your daily activities, and then brand new videos, man, every Wednesday, Thursday, shorts every single day. So turn on notifications, be sure to subscribe. Appreciate you guys coming with this journey. Leave your questions below, man. I'm happy to answer. You want to talk shit? I'm happy to answer that too. And then we'll continue vlogging. So not daily vlogs, but we're going to be videotaping every single day because we've got so much going on. I don't want to share with you all. I'm going to finish yourself, get a walk in, try to get some food in, clear my lungs a little bit, and then catch you guys in the next one.