My fitness journey.

I was something of a party animal in my youth. I took every opportunity i could to have a "great" time.
So when I graduated high school ,and a business opportunity presented itself in Mexico I was off.
I honestly felt at the time that the "pueblo life suited me more than what had grown accustomed to in the United States.
Life was great in Mexico . I spent two weekends a month in Colima in resorts like Barcelo, Tesoro, Maeva, and basically any other one our customs agent had a deal with. At this point i felt like my life couldn't be better. I was 19, making great money, working 10-15 hours a week.
Fast foward to December 2006, I had been in Mexico for some time and decided it would be nice to visit the famliy for the holidays. I remember being happy about seeing everyone but,to be honest, I dont remember much about December 2006 or the following months.
On January 17th 2007 I was in a bad car accident. According to the police report the dynamic stability control caused the car to attempt to correct itself on a patch of black ice, which cauae the left rear tire and control arm to break. At which point the car left the road and flipped multiple times.
Waking up in the hospital is a vague memory, surreal and dream like. My back was wrecked. Even through the numbness i could feel it. I was told that my passenger had died. To be honest in the moment i dont think i really grasped what that meant. Life didnt feel real, and i was certain id be waking from a bad dream. Any minute now.....
The next few months of my life were spent in a hazy ,drug induced, almost sleep walking state. I remember having a back brace and neck brace, and needing assistance to make it to the bathroom. That coupled with the reality of my friends death setting in put me in a horrible place mentally.
After a few checkups my doctor told me that my back had healed surprisingly well and that i should consider physical therapy in an attempt to avoid surgery. It wasnt then that i started my training, i remember just feeling along the lines of "whatever ill smoke some pot and hardly even feel it".

       Then one day i woke up feeling great. 

Im not sure what it was.Maybe it was the position i slept in maybe gravity was just being kind that day.
Whatever it was it gave me mental clarity. I didn't want to wake the next day and not feel that way. I bought myself a small pair of dumbbells and a mens health magazine, and picked a routine.
In retrospect what followed was a year of me trying to give myself tendonitis, but of course I didnt see it that way.
I was doing a routine that had set and rep volume suited for a professional bodybuilder on steroids. Despite this I practiced my dumbell deadlifts almost religiously and could feel the difference in my back. I felt strong again.
I had also made some "gains"

after

   Believe me when I say I was proud. I kept at it with my routine ,and only ever worried about the scale.

Fast foward about 2 years I was about 195 lbs ,which in my mind equated to being "swole".
I was at the gym when I met a kid named Devon. I outweighed him by 20 lbs easily ,but we were lifting the same weight. I was curious so I asked what type of split he did. He told me he was doing an upper/lower split with progressive overloading. This was actually my first time hearing this term as I'd spent most of my bodybuilding history pretty much maxing out every day. Despite the fact that there was no "arm" day I gave it a shot. I had been busy logging my lift numbers ,and completely forgot about the scale. I'd decided I wated functional strength gains, and if I kept eating and getting stronger Id keep gaining weight.
So after three months when curiosity finally won I stepped on the scale. One hundred and seventy six pounds........
I was shocked. I couldnt figure out how to feel about it, but convinced myself not to stray from my path.
I added 500 calories to my diet ,and in a month and a half I was back up to 186. though I now suspect I may have been slightly dehydrated when I weighed myself initially.
About a year later my brother and I went to play basketball. I looked like a very fit male, but my cardio was horrible. on top of that i hadnt realized how much flexibility i had lost. I wasn't happy with it so I went back to the drawing board. I decided to include a day of stretching and yoga into my week. On top of that I began stretching for longer before lifting.
I had never realized how much of a difference stretching properly would have on strength. My improved mobility had incredible transfer when it came to squats and deadlifts. Having tried every program you can think of I began constructing my own. Not something i'd recommend for someone else ,just something that I could tell worked for me. What i landed on borrows ideas from the gzcl method, crossfit workouts such as tabatha applied to compound movements, and some german volume training. While at the same time I now prioritize stretching and mobility.
I'm currently down to 169 lbs and feeling great. My personal records on my main lifts are 365lb on bench press
220 on strict form military press standing, 515 conventional deadlift, 545 sumo dealift and 415 squat. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted out of fitness,and maybe i'm still not there, but I've learned a lot about myself and self discipline. I love it because whatever you put in is what you get out of it. its always a work in progress, bt thats actually the fun part.

I'm currently on a clean bulk and hoping to get to 175 lbs by the end of the year.
Wish me luck.

To all of my fellow ectomorphs
animo se se puede!