Adam Schafer

Many times I had to backtrack and stay at a level for months.

Wow.

However, in 2025, everything changed.

Using the scale to maintain my weight, my reverse diet saw me go from 2,000 all the way to 3,800 calories.

I was constantly hitting PRs in literally every lift of your programs.

And I straight up traded 19 pounds of fat for lean mass with no change on the scale.

So this is what you guys call the Goldilocks zone, I think.

Yeah, dude.

Fast forward to now, and the reason why I wrote in, I'm regressing.

Wrist and forearm are the causes.

I've been doing physical therapy for significant forearm pain.

It's worse in things like hammer curls, pull-ups, and even limiting with pressure down on them with dumbbell presses, just getting the weight down on and in the forearm here.

And then as for wrists, my grip I've found, like my deadlift hasn't changed much in the last six months or so.

I can do 335 for a few reps, but grip is the failure point, not anything else.

I can definitely go higher.

So I've never used straps or belts, and I haven't wanted to do that based on listening to you guys.

So...

Wanted to see your thoughts on programming or, you know, where do I go from here?

I'm going to guess, you know, it sounds like I had a lot of newbie gains in the beginning.

So, you know, I do my tendons and stuff need to catch up.