Now don't get me wrong. Relative strength to weight is a thing to consider, but i believe it's the framing and perspective in which we fuck up these things.

I'm not speaking from a competitive aspect, but rather from a health and image standpoint (surprise surprise). A sport such as this with such a focus on body despite all our best efforts to put forward or motto of "not shredded not concerned" we all see ourselves in the worst light and are our own worst critic.

Due to this, many people, myself included fall into a trap of marrying a weight class or a certain look and limiting our strength due to some arbitrary number on a scale. We justify this through the use of wilks, glossbrenner, and other formulas named for old white dudes. And while, it is our best comparison of strength, it is flawed fundamentally. We keep dieting, we keep getting heavier in the "off season", and we might have upward progression for a while but then we stop. At which point, you decide to move up or to get caught in an eternal state of mediocrity. But hey, you have abs and you get a lot of likes on your photos so that's nice.

Who won the US Open this past year? A competition based on wilks? Some dude who cut 30lbs and bumped his wilks up a bunch right?

...

Oh, that dude ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis? And a competitor that didn't cut won it???

Absolutely. Yury Belkin walked in at a light 242, had to only focus on actually lifting weight (it's in the name powerlifting!!!) And ate all of our fucking lunches AGAIN!!

Because what happens when you get stronger? Your wilks goes up too!

This perpetual mental masturbation of cutting and image and worrying of other people's views of us, and our own opinion of our self has turned some of our competitions into shitty bodybuilding preps by the kids off the short bus. In a world so superficial and an "industry" supported entirely by how other people view you, could young people in this sport be expected to react any other way? I don't think so.

But as you all have seen, i am not weighing myself in the next few months and eating a great deal in order to fuel an extreme demand from training  and 50 hour weeks with a physically demanding job. And i AM fatter than i have been. But i am STRONGER than i ever have been. And you know what that does, gives me confidence, and confidence is a much more invigorating quality when developing relationships in life as opposed to saying "check out this photo where the lighting was REAL GOOD"

So i ask you. Get away from the scale for a little while. Get closer to what makes this sport great: the joy of getting stronger. If you hit a 900lb squat, will your family care if it's done in the 242ln weight class, or the 275 class? Will your husband? Your girlfriend? No one who truly cares about you will give a damn. They will be happy for your success. And if otherwise, you are listening to the wrong voices.

Embrace who you are and make yourself powerful. Change your perspective and it will change your life.