What Got You Started?

I thought it would be interesting to learn how we all got started living healthy and fit lifestyles. I was 19 the first time I ever worked out (that was 9 years ago). My brother just bought a Soloflex machine and was doing the Cybergenics workout (remember that?). My first day consisted of squats (of course) where I would do 80% of my max til failure, cut that in half and do that til failure, cut that in half til failure, then plyometric jumps til I couldn’t jump any more, and then standing squats til I couldn’t stand any more. FIVE sets of that! Well, no warm up or post stretching, I couldn’t bend my legs for 3 days. In the next 7 years or so, I continued to work out, but had no clue what I was doing, although I knew about good form.

When I thought I was eating right, my diet was high carb, low fat and protein. Who knew, right? LOL … hey, we all learn, and I’m still learning. Anyway, long story short, I got a clue at about 25, but diet still lagged. This is the first year I’m doing things right. The reason I started training seriously wasn’t for vanity reasons, but because I starting competitive BMX, and I wanted to win. I grew up a chubby kid (not obese) but never had a problem getting girls, so I was content. No more of that crap! I want to look and fell good and feel good for me now. Anyway, that’s my story.

I was always the skinny kid that got picked on. I got tired of it and started eating like a madman when I was 13 (7th grade). Only I ate pure garbage. I got fat by the time I was in 8th grade. One day I had my cholesterol checked and it was 240! I made the decision to lose weight and get in shape. I started reading Men’s Fitness and learning about nutrition. I stopped eating all junk food and soda. I lost all the weight by the time I started high school. But didn’t get into weight training until after I graduated high school. The whole time I just stayed active playing neighborhood football, soccer, baseball, etc. And I started doing pushups, situps and some running. I only wish I started hitting the weights much earlier. And I wish I played organized sports when I was in high school. I am making up for it now.

I got started back in High School. At 6’5" 160 I couldnt get laid in a whorehouse with a $500 bill between my legs…and I was a benchwarmer at football. Probably the summer before my Junior year, I had a guy at a party tell me “If I had your size, (heightwise) I would be looking magnificent!! You Dont deserve that frame…if your gonna look all skinny and nasty) That comment burned in me (and still does lol!) That summer I worked for a contractor who was into bodybuilding. He worked my ass off all summer and showed me how to lift. Also fed me like a friggin horse, and also right around that time puberty hit pretty hard. I went from 160 to 205 in one summer (again, puberty had a lot to do with it…dont all you youngins expect to gain 45 pounds in one summer) Anyway, when I got back to HS I was a bench warmer NO LONGER, and was MVP that year at Linebacker. Suddenly the girls were looking my way, and I was a happy Whopper. After that I lifted on and off thru college, and the next few years. I didn’t get serious into it again until about 5 years ago…since then, I have been pretty constant, and now am 6’5” and 256.

I started in college, damn near flunked out I was so into it. I had good gains but had to stop. 15 years later I wake up and I am 200 lbs and 23% BF. I went to Mexico for vaction, had a great time but the pictures were really BAD. I did BFL and got to 181 and 12.5 % BF but really still looked the same only smaller. I knew I had to put on some muscle and get leaner. Found Biotest and T-mag and saw the light. I am currently 200lbs and about 13% BF. Utilimate goal is 210-220 and 8%, I will get there!

For me it started in the 8th grade when I got my first K-mart weight set, you know the kind, the aluminum foil bar and cement plates. Anyway I didn’t know what I was doing, I just knew I wanted to be better at football, then when I got to high school I started getting serious about it. My sophmore year I bought an Ironman swimsuit edition, mostly for the chicks, but I learned a few things and enjoyed the reading. Shortly after I found MM2K, I friggin loved it. MM2K got me hooked until the “Golden Guy” issue, then I only lasted a few more issues. Fortunetly for all of us T-mag stepped in and took over where MM2K left off. Along the way I bought every book and supplement I could get my hands on. Now my every waking moment is focused on strength training lifestyle.

I started in about 7th, 8th grade, can’t really remember anyways, my brothers and I had a crappy set of standard weights, with a “power rack” my step-dad made of 2x4’s and 4x4’s, it worked pretty well, but I got started just because my older brother was lifting them and like most kids they to some degree want badly to be as big and tough as their older brother, little did I know, I apparently scavenged all the recessive genes from my parents I could find and am 5’11" instead of 6’4" like my older and younger brothers, it’s crappy but hey I’m doing alright. Eventually though I started realizing the effect of lifting on athletic performance and it just took on a mind of it’s own.

I came from a country where no one cared about fitness and stuff and cared more about getting good grades in school.I was pretty chubby as I got older because I ate a lotta shit like fried chickens with skins, chips, soda, fries(mmmm) etc and then I came to America,I went to high school and in my 9th and 10th grade I didn’t care much about all that fitness,I loved watching sports etc.Then in my 11th grade,I picked up Men’s Health and starting getting interested in being a “cover model looking person”…well,that does not work out unless u got good genes or shit.Anyway, I also hated being teased for being fat while I lived in my country and I hated it.Anyway,I hit weights in school a lil and jogged slow but short (gosh,ok,so I didn’t know much then),learned to do my first complete pushup, bought 2 dumbbells and learned to use it for curls etc I slept very little all the time on weekends playing Counterstrike on the computer. I still didn’t eat well (lotta carbs, not much fat, lil protein) and finally, my comp was taken away. I joined the gym as part of the deal with my parents(yea whatever) and started learning more and more…and getting much more protein. I learned so much since less than a yr ago… I started weight training in Aug 2000 so I am pretty happy with my progress… I cannot believe some of u all have so many yrs of experience of training behind u but this first yr in my “career”, I have learned from T-mag, Men’s Health forum, many fitness mags etc.


I still continue looking for all the flaws that hinder my progress and I continue to look for ways to improve my gains, size etc. Wat I really need is money (I have to save for college) and I really can’t get too many supplements I need (Biotest stuff!) so I’ll just persist and slowly obtain them. Weight training has been one of the best things to happen to me.

typical athletic type growing up who ended up sitting behind a desk and 10 years later looked in the mirror and wondered what happened. fed up with being a fat-ass i decided to get back into shape. that was a little over two years ago. all i wanted to do was lose 30 pounds at first. i couldn’t believe how easy it was so i decided to take my physique as far as i could. currently a work in progress…

I started lifting in 8th grade. I was one of the better athletes in my grade at my school, and some of the football coaches (it was a small K-12 private school, so my middle school football coaches were also the varsity coaches) took some of us athletes into the weight room to start getting us ready for high school football. I fell in love with it, and at 125lbs. knew I had a long way to go, so I got really serious. I subscribed to Flex and Muscle and Fitness, bought a weight set for my house, and started training religiously. I grew up in Houston and was lucky to have parents who were very supportive of my athletic aspirations, so the summer after my ninth grade year (I was up to about 135lbs. by that point) I was able to consult with Keith Klein (the nutritionist of Muscle Media fame). He got me eating like a bodybuilder, and by the beginning of school 2 months later I was up to 152lbs. I stopped playing football (though it was through football that I was initially introduced to weightlifting) and decided to focus on wrestling. I was so so dedicated to weight training that I was able to win the majority of my matches from that point on on the basis of strength alone. By me senior year I was up to 180lbs. and easily the strongest guy in my region in my weight class. That was 5 years ago. I’m now 23, 5’9", ~195 (fluctuate between 190 and 210), and though I’m no longer an athlete, I still train as though I am. Weightlifting became a passion for me at 14 and has been a constant source of joy and empowerment ever since.

I got started in 8th grade. I was 5’2, 220, and all lard, I couldn’t bench the bar, and it was sickening. I decided to do something about it. I played football that year and couldn’t do anything without getting out of breath. I ran wind sprints everyday in the off season to go along w/ the sucky ‘bigger, faster, stronger’. The next summer I lifted weights and ran, but the weights didn’t help much. I was 5’6 and 150, very explosive and balanced, but not enough muscle. I had to quit football because of grades. I later discovered T-Mag and Massive Eating and got up to 200 at 5’8. I’m cutting now and down to 180.

The first movie I ever saw was the original “Conan the Barbarian”. That was when I was 7, ever since then Arnold has stuck in my head as the way a man should look. Nuff said. Its been all uphill since then. I am 6’6" and weigh 271.

Hell yeah Ox, that was the first movie I ever went to too. Still one of my favorites.

I became tired of being FAT! I was the pretty face, but sooooooo out of shape chick. Even when I was fat, guys were never an issue, but I wanted to really like the way my body looked. I loved the way fitness women looked and lots of the smaller bodybuilders. I have always been strong and I decided that I was going to pursue my dream of a hot bod, competition and bikinis on the beach. And having a bo who loves to lift definitely helps.

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This may sound “Un-T-Man-ish”, but it was the FEMALE bodybuiders of the early to mid eighties! Let me explain. Up until that point, the “ideal” for fitness was some Spaz who jogged, lifted bunny weights and who wore short shorts, a head band, and had skinny legs with a bird chest. One day, as a chubby pre-pubescent guy, I see a copy of “Muscle and Fitness” with Rachel McClish on the front (I still have it, believe it or not!) and she reminded me of a living “Greek Statue”. Geez…if a woman can look like this, can some chubby GUY kid also? Of course I later ran into the likes of Paris, LaBrada, DeMey and others with that unparelled symmetry and proportion, but the beautiful lines of the early female bodybuiders got me “hooked” to the Game; and I haven’t looked back since!

As many of us ALL probably did at one time or another, I tried to follow the programs in the mags and failed MISERABLY. It has only been in the past five or so years that I've probably put training and diet all together. Where was a "straigt shooter" like "Testosterone" in the 80's? A lot of you guys, ESPECIALLY the teens, are lucky to have such a resource...I guess maybe we all are!

Pretty cool stories from y’all. I started lifting two years ago, at 16. I never got serious till I was 17, about 14 months ago. I was never a confident kid, but weights changed that. I got serious about it because a girlfriend of about 7 months gave me the boot, and that was the easiest way to get over it. Needless to say, it was one of the best things that’s happened to me. Now I lift for confidence and for girls, and it works in both departments rather well. OH yeah, and when I found T-mag about 6 months ago, I really started to train right.

I always had a nice bathing suit body without even trying until I was about 35. Various mix of recreational athletics kept me in shape. Then I started to put on the pounds and followed the Atkin’s diet to lose, only to gain, then lose again…yoyo for a few years and suddenly…I realized I had lost A LOT of muscle. Panic struck and I started hitting the iron and started consuming more (not a lot) carbs everyday. I’m getting my muscle back! I’ll never leave the iron.

You and I probably looked a lot alike in high school, whopper. I was 6’6" and about 195. About a month after high school graduation, I got my ass kicked one night at the beach by this kid who was my height and about twice my freakin’ size. It was in front of my friends and some girls, too. Totally humiliating. Anyways, I didn’t know a whole lot about lifting at the time, but I started the next day at my friend’s house. I know my workouts weren’t perfect and I know I definitely wasn’t eating right but I was only 18 and I worked out A LOT and I ate A LOT. I grew like a mother. Anger and humiliation can really be great motivators when put to proper use. Anyways, by the end of my sophomore year in college, I was 6’7" and right around 250. That really helped in the getting my ass kicked department. During that time, I learned that a little muscle goes a long way with the women and I’ve had no problem keeping myself motivated since. :wink:

True,I use plenty of knowledge I learn from T-mag…man,if there weren’t no T-mag,they ain’t nuthin! :slight_smile:

Over the years I bought a couple of different benches and weight sets. Never really used them. When I turned 37 I thought, “Shit! I’m having a really good time here and want to live for ever”. It donned on me that if I ever wanted to get BIG I had better get started before I’m no longer just a young pup. Now I’m 6’ 205lb and growing with the big 4 oh less than a month away.

Two words: Frosh 15