Greetings from Scotland

[Mike A]

Hi all, 

I'm a long-time reader of NF, but have only just registered as weirdly enough I only looked at the forums for the first time a couple of days ago! I love the idea of sharing progress and offering support, so here goes.

I'm 27, and I'm a modern languages teacher (German and Spanish) from Scotland. I played hockey (roller and ice) competitively when growing up and recreationally now, but was always fairly skinny. Over the last few years I discovered weight training thanks, partially, to this blog (and a few others!) and have added a fair amount of lean size to my frame. I'm still a bit self conscious, if I'm honest, but the difference in me now and then in terms of confidence and self esteem is huge. 

 

Current goals- working toward a double bodyweight deadlift (I'm 90kg just now so that's 180kg, my current 1RM is around 160kg), and improving my bench press (no real reason other than it's always been relatively weak, current 1RM is about 85kg). 

 

I'm following a Leangains style Reverse Pyramid Training programme, which I'm really enjoying. I'm also following Leangains style IF, and have used it to gain some size. I'm a bit unsure about where to go from here, as I'd like to work in a brief Leangains cycle of fat loss even though I'm fairly lean, but know that my strength isn't going to go up if I do that!

 

Anyway, looking forward to contributing and being part of the community on here