Hi, My name is Cal Heikkila or Buzz. I’m going to use the first post in this journal to basically give you a biography of my training life, and some information on me as a person too. It is my dream to become a successful professional wrestler along with my other personal goals such as novel writing and graphic novel art and writing.
I’ve wasted the last 4 1/2 years since High School working my way up to running my own fast food restaurant, and then I tried my hand in construction last summer. Currently I’m laid off for the season, and have begun to work toward improving my standing in life by working toward my goals both in lifting, jobs, education, and otherwise. I’ve been working out off and on since I was 12(1999 or so). I went from being the super skinny sickly little kid who could barely do physical activities to the fat kid.
I started with the basics pushups, crunches, sit-ups, bodyweight squats, and used the few lightweight rubber dumbbells my parents had. I bought into gimmicks like torso track, and got a standard Weider weight set and bench. To put it bluntly I didn’t know what I was doing. I started buying muscle mags and reading the forum on Dr. Squat Fred Hatfield’s website. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the muscle mags were little more than advertisement heaven with some decent advice sprinkled in here and there.
As a teen I tried reading a lot of Dr. Squats articles, but the language in them baffled me and left me with more questions then answers most of the time. So I posted on the board asking for a good beginners program and got a 5x5 program by a pretty good powerlifter by the name of Roger Hendrix.
The program was pretty good and helped me gain some strength, but my own laziness prevented me from making the types of gains I should have. I would skip days, or cut out sets quite frequently and eventually quit for a good six months. Sometime along the way of my on again off again relationship with working out I decided to switch from trying to be a powerlifter to a bodybuilder. Which was probably good considering that I was having better luck putting on muscle mass then plates on the bar.
Around 2004-2005 after seeing several posters over the years on the Dr.Squat boards ridiculing the T-Nation website over repeating information that the Doc himself had said 20-30 years earlier. I decided to check T-Nation out. To my surprise the articles were broken down for the most part so that a guy like me could learn valuable information, and even learn some of the more complex language as I went along. Now from 2005-2007 I probably had my most consistent stretch of training. I used the ABC Principles for Bodybulding(the made simple 28 days version) by Fred Hatfield and Fred Hatfield II several times. I also completed a round of German Volume Training.
I still wasn’t perfect, I was still taking a month off every few months. I packed on quite a bit of muscle mass during this period, but all good things come to an end when you make excuses. I quit working out again due to my hours at work 50 plus and an hour drive each way. Since then other than a few weeks here and there of training, the most physical thing I did was my concrete job which actually helped me down from 260 to 230 lbs.
Fast forward about six months and some sporadic workouts later and I’m back up to 260 lbs. I’ve got some visible muscle mass that gets comments on occasion, but I’m also fat enough to get comments on that as well. I’m done making excuses, I’ve read enough and even have enough experience to know what I need to do. Now I’m going to do it. I’ve been easing into working out again since January, and today I began training toward my goals.
I stopped letting the excuse that my home gym wasn’t complete enough to do what I needed get in my way, and got a gym membership to Powerhouse. I’ve decided to do Thib’s OVT and today I went into the gym and kicked the shit out of myself. I may not have been putting up some impressive weight, but I made sure that I walked out of the gym with my money’s worth. I’m trying to focus in on my diet as well. Keeping carbs simple with green veggies, sweet potatoes, rice, and some fruits in the morning and after workouts. Keeping the protein intake high and of course using my omega 3,6,9 geltabs for some healthy fats.
Not that it matters since they were never impressive to begin with. I’ll post what my highest lifts were/ I’ve never truly gone for a one rep max on the squat or deadlift, only the bench.
Bench- 205 lbs 2 reps
Squat- I’ve done sets of 5 in the mid 200’s, but I want to keep it honest and won’t post an exact number seeing as how I can’t remember.
Deadlift- 300 lbs 3 reps.