Three or four years ago I was really into powerlifting. I always weighed about 165-170, but over the course of a year I got up to about 200lbs, and was lifting a ton of weight. I did a mixture of low rep/high rep workouts, but the emphasis was definitely always on lifting heavier and heavier weights.

Finally after about two years of this my body was completely shot. I was having all sorts of problems with my shoulders, elbows, and knees. I stopped lifting all together and just started swimming and running instead. Eventually I got into crossfit and now do a decent amount of weights every week. But, the huge difference is that now when I weight train I do 30-40% of the weight I used to do, but 3-5 times the number of reps. The difference is incredible. I'm way healthier now, have no problems with my joints, and my weight has stabilized at around 175.

Back in the day I could never imagine working out like I do now, but these days I can't understand why I used to put my body through all of that.