My photos were taken December 30, 2001, 8 days post blitz, with a slight pump due to a couple sub-failure sets of chins and dips. Leg shots were not taken simply because I just received my camera, took the pictures myself, and was unable to get a good shot pressed for time. Although long, they are my best body part, measuring at their thickest point just 6 inches less than my waist, and they will be included in future updates.

Speaking of the midsection, in the past 6 months, it's dropped from 32 to 29 inches, and stayed within about a half inch of the latter for the past 4 months. I've weighed as much as 208 in the past, eating a ton of pasta and performing 2-3 sets of exercise once every two weeks, and not happy about the midsection. That brevity and infrequency may work for others, but not me. Concurrent with the drop in waist size was a drop in all measurements, but at the most it was around a half inch, some even less.

Ever since No Turning Back (an IART manual) and hearing on the IART Roundtable of others' experiments with their protocols, particularly increasing volume and frequency, I've been less afraid of veering from a predetermined path with my training, and ultimately HIT dogma. I'm no longer aiming for sheer size at any cost... as well, I look bigger with a shirt off than on. While far from the biggest guy around (take a good look at the pictures, particularly comparing the views from the front and side, almost looks like two different people), I'd like to maintain my leanness year round and add what little mass possible to my frame.

The concepts of blitzing and cycle-blasting (see Apex) have been tremendously helpful in enhancing my physique. I look forward to training and designing programs more, now that workouts have alternated and training variables are interspersed throughout the protocol - in some cases the exact same workout won't be repeated over a twelve week microcycle. The same can be said for diet and to a lesser extent, cardio - it all seems less 'do or die' than previous. This last blitz was my fourth, and it incorporated two workouts each for delts and legs, and one each for arms, chest, and back.