How Did It Start?

Training Bodybuilding
1

How did u guys find the gym for the very first time?

I was 15 at the time and use to fart ass around at home lifting house bricks and logs.
One day 2 of my friends said let go to that new gym that opened a few blocks away.

So off we went and paid $3 (aus) to get in. I remember thinking this place is fucking awsomeas i looked around the room and seen all these huge guys and tasty ladies on the treadmills.

Ever since that day i stepped in the gym have i ever thought of not going back.

I look back now 11 years later and think ,here i was a 6 feet 4 67 kgs skinny bastard with only dreams in my head hoping i could get to the size of those monsters in the squat rack.After all this time ive built myself up to 115 kgs.

I couldnt imagine life without workout out.

So lets here some first time experiences from u guys and gals ,not (SEX) first time u sick bastards.

Peace.

King of Kings

2

[quote]King of Kings wrote:
How did u guys find the gym for the very first time?

I was 15 at the time and use to fart ass around at home lifting house bricks and logs.
One day 2 of my friends said let go to that new gym that opened a few blocks away.

So off we went and paid $3 (aus) to get in. I remember thinking this place is fucking awsomeas i looked around the room and seen all these huge guys and tasty ladies on the treadmills.

Ever since that day i stepped in the gym have i ever thought of not going back.

I look back now 11 years later and think ,here i was a 6 feet 4 67 kgs skinny bastard with only dreams in my head hoping i could get to the size of those monsters in the squat rack.After all this time ive built myself up to 115 kgs.

I couldnt imagine life without workout out.

So lets here some first time experiences from u guys and gals ,not (SEX) first time u sick bastards.

Peace.

King of Kings
[/quote]

well i remember my first “lifting” session in a real gym. i did chest and bi’s. and then the next day i went back and did chest and bi’s. the third day i went in and did…chest and bi’s. that was my split routine. ahh young and unexperienced.

3

I joined so my mum wouldn’t feel alone joining. First day I did assisted chinups, seated rows, deadlifts [db], upright rows, bent rows and a half assed set of dumb bell presses.

I realised unlike everyone else in my gym, I hated training chest and loved training back. I’ve since corrected the imbalances developed then, but I can still bent row more then I can bench. And do more pullsups then pushups.

4

I remember being 9 or 10 and offering to go get food out of the freezer in the basement just so I could sneak in some weight lifting on my brothers set of Sears wieghts. You guys Remember those cement filled burgundy plates?

I’d come back upstairs with the goods from the freezer, hand it off to my mom, then run into the bathroom so I could flex in front of the mirror.

I didn’t get into an official “weight room” until 7th grade football. The weights were rusty and the room was just a caged off section of the woodshop at the high school. We’d have to wait in the woodshop until all the high-schoolers were gone before we could go in.

Sometimes I wish I could train there again, hard to say if that cage is even there anymore.

B.

5

My older brother Dave worked out and ran constantly, even when he had the flu…Anyway, he brought me into his gym when I was probably 13 or 14…Back then I never dedicated myself to anything.

Then I played high school football which kept me at it. Been at it since, off and on, mostly on, through my twenties…then I found a good gym and a good workout plan and have stuck to this routine for the last three years.

6

I had been in and out of the gym since high school, but I didn’t truly find it until I was 23. I had been out of the Marines for almost a year and was weighing in at 220 lbs at 5’11" and very little of that was muscle.

Then I rented Conan the Barbarian, and even though I had seen it several times before, it hit a nerve this time. I looked at my wife and said, “By God I’m gonna get big, dammit!” After finishing the movie, I got online and started actually researching bodybuilding. Armed with knowledge (for the first time in my life), and a new drive to get huge, I went to the gym the next day. That was in Dec of 2004 & I haven’t missed a day since (except for sickness or vacation).

I know its cliche’, but Arnold got me in the gym. I have since discovered a passion for strongman training & couldn’t care less about bodybuilding, but 'twas bodybuilding got me started.

7

I started when I was 17. One of my good friends was on the football team, and very strong. So, he told me he was taking an extra weight training class (beginners) just to fill in some time in his schedule.

Knowing what I know now, we didnt train the best way possible, but it damn sure did work. Our first day we did everything. Bench, Row, Squat, Curl, Shrug etc…That was the first and only time I ever fainted from working out. I was so sore the next couple weeks even sitting down to take a shit was a chore.

We 10,8,6 or 5x5 almost exclusively, and we always trained to failure. I was a beginner, but in three months my bench went from 100lbs to 200lbs, and my squat from barely 135 to 225. Those were the days!

8

Started at 18 (156lbs) , I was a Security Guard kicking out a drunk homeless guy and he placed his hand on my upper arm and commented how he?s starving but has bigger arms than me :frowning: . Busted my ass at home training with water jugs of different sizes and eventually began filling them with sand from a nearby park. I was too intimidated to go to a real gym then but I gained some decent gains and began realizing how important eating big was to getting big.

Eventually joined a gym, stayed to myself for a long time until the ?big guys? began actually talking to me and commenting how they noticed I trained seriously. Since then I find myself working out with some awesome big guys and BB?rs and we really push/help each other.

Every now and then I feel myself loosing motivation but it usually just takes a session or two of legs with some good people to bring it up again.

9

It all started about five years ago. I’d gotten really injured playing ice hockey, tore my ACL/meniscus/ligaments in my right knee. Healed okay, then re-injured it playing lacrosse a year or so later. Went to lots of physical therapy, spent my whole summer doing the damn stuff (I was 14). At the end, they told me I was fine, but to avoid long distance running and deep squats.

So I joined cross country. I ran my first season, and sucked (for the team, at least - I was back of the pack, 25 minute 5k’s, etc). Then I joined indoor track. And outdoor track. And started throwing shotput and discus, and holy shit, I was good. I wasn’t as big as the other girls, but routinely placed very high in big meets and championships.

I had a great throwing coach, who got me squatting, deadlifting, bench pressing, military pressing, and incline pressing. I was the only chick in the weight room during practice, and could lift more than most of the male throwers.

In terms of sheer strength, this was the strongest - but not leanest - I ever was. My squat at the time was about 280 and I could leg press about 450 lbs (not bad for a little 5’6" 160 lb shrimpy girl :wink: )

Then I went to college, was in Air Force ROTC. I got really good at running and doing pushups, but lost all my strength. Also got fat – put on about 50 lbs in a year or so, on a diet fueld by beer, pizza, subs, etc. Left ROTC. Changed majors. And then… my mother cornered me and told me I’d gotten way too fat… I guess I got too comfortable (was in a relationship, he didn’t work out, etc). She offered me 1000 bucks to drop 30 lbs, so I took her on.

I walked back into the weight room about a year ago, at the spry age of 19, with a new drive. I weighed 200 lbs, was fat as shit, and horribly out of shape. I started lifting, eating right, and running.
Got down to about 160 lbs, which is where I’m at now. Bodyfat went from 40% to a reasonably respectable 27%. Now it’s just a part of life: If I don’t workout every day, I get antsy, and full of nervous energy. It’s the top of my priority list, and I just go to the local commercial gym. I love it; the best hour of my day :slight_smile:

10

When I was 14 I got a home gym for xmas, nothing special. I had no idea what I wasdoing, i think i did something like 24 sets of 10 on most things since it only had a few. Basically all I worked was chest abs and legs. Finally just over a year ago (Im only 17 now) I got a membership at a public gym. I loved it. I spent nearly 3 hours at the gym the first couple of times I went. I still love it.

11

Senior year of high school i weighed about 120lbs, decided i was sick of it so i joined the national guard (not out of patriotism, but because i wanted to get buff). well in the few months before i shiped i was able to bulk up to 145 thru eating and pushups, sit ups, and pull ups. I didn’t actually gain weight during basic but when i went to ait they had a nice gym and an even nicer chow hall, i managed to sneak just past 170.

Now until that point i knew to eat alot but i wasn’t really all that motivated to train, there was just something about when i realized i had gained ~50lbs of muscle that got me excited and now i can’t help but think of lifting all day.

12

I started track as a freshman in high school running the 800. Eventually I decided I wanted to do the 400, and so I started training with the sprinters. As a Junior in HS, I weighed probably 130. Until I was a senior in high school I really had no idea what I was doing, then I lifted with the football coach and sort of got a clue. At the beginning of this past summer, going into my sophomore year in college I found T-Nation and now I really feel like I know what I’m doing. I still only weigh in at 160, but I’ll get up there.

13

I always sucked at sports, I was more interested in reading and genuinely didn’t see a point in playing soccer etc from a very young age. I remember being picked last after the girls on many occasions. My spatial abilitys sucked, and I was known as a klutz.

I went to high school and after I graduated, I drank alot and took on a few pounds more. I always was on the heavy side but 220 with hardly any strength and a pear shaped body was more then I had bargoned for. I decided I was too fat and didn’t eat anything but dinner for 2-3 monthes and weighed ~170 and STILL had a bad mental image. I finally had enough and decided that I had to do something about it, and joined a gym. My bro gave me some good exercises to do and brought me pain.

I remember having trouble with 65 pounds benchpress and 90 pound lat pulldowns. My bro has accomplished a lot on sheer dedication, and the fact he is a cook who eats all day and lifts heavy crap. The way he trained was 6 days a week with a 60 hour job, so I followed his example and trained 6 times a week (1? hours) with a split program, and even once 7 days fullbody in a row

. Allthough it gave good results in the start it started fading and since then I have read a shitload and learned a lot, and hopefully soon will beat bros 5x 300 pound raw bp faster then him. Even though he now had kids, and doesn’t train often, I have learned one can come a long way with hard work, balls and shitloads of food. I feel it has given me discipline, pride, courage, self-confidence and a will to succeed and has improved my life quality. Under construction…