About Spytech
I am a natural, lifetime drug-free “powerbuilder”.
I stepped into a real gym for the first time back in 1995 when I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school. Hoping to some day look like the next Arnold, I ambitiously attacked the bench press and curl bars. As high school passed by, I trained somewhat consistently and managed to add a few pounds to my frame. But due to being extremely active, it didn’t amount to much. I graduated high school in 1999 carrying a massive body weight of 135 lbs at a lean 7 percent body fat while standing 5’10” tall. At this time, I had a 185 lb bench press, had never performed a squat or deadlift, and could curl 35 lb dumbbells.
With college arriving, I had much more time on my hands because I had opted to pass up athletics at the college level. I started training more consistently (3–4 days per week), ate a lot of junk food, and had aspirations of being as absolutely huge and ripped as possible. My workout regimen was nothing more than an instinctive “one body part per day” split, and it yielded progress. By the fall of 2003, I had added some lean mass and weighed in at 170 lbs. My body fat was still at around 7 percent thanks to a very fast metabolism.
At about this point, I decided that 35 lbs of mass in just about four years of consistent training was ridiculously slow progress. I sat down and read tons of articles about diet and nutrition and put together my first ever bodybuilder style “bulking cycle.” By January 2004, I hit 200 lbs for the first time at around 11 percent body fat. From that point on, I consistently researched nutrition and exercise techniques, honed my workouts, intensified my training, and continuously performed bulk/cut phases. I learned what squats and deadlifts were.
Then, one fateful day in December of 2005, I had a turning point when I stumbled across a basic Westside Barbell (WSB) training template. Now that I was weighing in at close to 220 lbs at 12 percent body fat, I was pretty content with how my physique had shaped up. I thought it was time to really buckle down and start focusing on strength. I no longer had much interest in the bodybuilding lifestyle, but some of the bodybuilder in me still remained.
Prior to starting the basic WSB template that December, my best wide stance squat was around 425 lbs with an Olympic squat best of 400 lbs X 2. My barbell benching movements were nonexistent, as I avoided them completely while building my physique. My best deadlift was a very tough 550 lb single in a conventional stance. After a few months of following the basic WSB template, my deadlift took a shit due to not training it directly, but my squat was getting stronger, and I had established baseline personal bests in the decline bench (325 lbs) and incline bench (305 lbs). I did not perform the flat bench due to some shoulder issues I’ve had since high school football.
By Fall 2006, while utilizing a custom WSB routine I designed, I managed to get my squat up to 600lbs, pulled 600 for 3, and started benching again. Things were going good, and then I got hit with a foot injury in January 2007, which sidetracked me until May. During June 2007 I suffered a large blood clot in my right thigh, which put me out of commission for a while yet again, and had an extensive recovery period that took up the rest of the year, for the most part. This was all very frustrating, to say the least, but being able to focus on nothing but form and assistance movements for a long period of time ended up helping me out greatly.
During Spring 2008 I managed to pull a 692 deadlift and squatted 625 for new PRs. Currently, everything is getting stronger, and I am sitting at around 230lbs while staying a lean 9%ish bodyfat.
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