It's amazing how awful I felt for so long and how quickly the medication I'm taking has brought me back to an OK feeling. I don't remember the exact dates but after 2-3 weeks on prednisone and humira, I've been able to get out and function in society the last three days.

And in exciting news, for me at least, I was finally back in the gym to help my good friend and client Alan hit his last heavy squat two weeks out from his first meet in who knows how many years. Joining him is Steve B. who I've known through the grapevine for years although we've never had the pleasure of training together. Fortunately, they both trusted me to help them get back to the platform.

They are both in their late 40's and as we started the ball rolling on their training everything was focused on a simple template with some strength training but heavy on a bodybuilding assistance. It's similar to how I train, but there were some obvious tweaks we had to make because of their age and ability to recover.

Long story short, as we progressed and they decided they wanted to do a meet, it dawned on me. Steve had some experience in gear and Alan was open to trying anything. So we got Alan set up with Jo Jordan for some oversized single ply gear, and Steve grabbed his old loose-fitting gear he had laying around. The reason we weren't aggressive with the fit is because the aim was to use it to keep these guys healthy.

*I sat down three different times to finish this but kept getting distracted. I think what I'll do is post-meet lay out their training cycle for you guys to see and it may be helpful to some older more experienced lifters that like to follow EliteFTS, or my training log for that matter.

**For videos of these guys check out my Facebook or IG or their IG's at stevebuccilli and pghmusicmag for Alan.