I am curious how people first got into bb, how old they were etc.
I think i read a Where’s Waldo book about 15 years ago. In one scene you were supposed to find Waldo in a beach scene. I remember bodybuilders on the beach, some had huge upper bodies and no legs, some had huge legs and no upper bodies, some were balanced. This is the earliest I can remember even thinking about muscles. I was around 8.
Then there was the barbell set my dad got me for xmas when i was about 10. If he says I spend too much time in the gym i call him out.
About a year and a half ago I got pretty ill and lost a lot of weight. It took a while to get well, but I did though it left me pretty weak and out of shape. Prior to this I taught LEO/Corrections defensive tactics, martial arts and combatives and I was very physically fit and active. I was doing pyramids, hindu push ups, hindu squats and handstand push ups.
So when I got wiped out…well it pretty much pissed me off. I determined to get well and get back in shape. As I mended up I started reseaching suppliments like Creatine which led me to this site a little over a year ago.
So I read just about every article on the site and learned how much I didn’t know about weight training. For the last year I trained pretty much for strength with lots of set and low reps. It has worked very well and I’m stronger now at almost 42 than I was at 21. I’ve gained strength and some size all over. Now I’m changing my work out up a bit to gain a bit more size/muscularity.
No one, honestly. When I was about 13 I was always one of the weaker ones in my age group, so I trained whenever I could to try and get stronger. (i wasn’t very good, I just did loads of sit-ups, push ups and step-ups thinking it would build muscle) However, I didn’t do very well and the constant bullying I recieved got the better of me so I stopped for a few years.
After looking at myself and realising I was bordering on anoerexic (sp?) I went to a gym, ate what my dad told me to (Steak, eggs, haggis - he’s scottish) along with weight gainer shakes and put on 28lbs in 5 months. (7.5 stone to 9.5 stone)
Ever since then I’ve gone been quite regular over the past year and a half. I haven’t made the progress I should of though, I’ve been quite in-consistant at times.
Right now I’m 11 stone with fairly low bodyfat (10-11%) so 49lbs in just over a year isn’t too bad!
about a year ago a group of friends and i started working out in one of my friend’s basement. he actually had a semi-decent set up, we just did a lot of benching, pushups, curls, tricep-work, and dips it wasnt much but for me it was a enough to create a spark which ignited an inferno.
as the time progressed less people would show up or be less consistent but i went every single day, sometimes my friend whose house it was wouldnt even work out. eventually that “sometimes” became a never and the workouts were eventually called off but it may have been due to his job or something, i cant really remember.
so having the determination and drive that i had i didnt let the lack of equipment stop me. for the next couple of months id just do variatons of pushups, ab-work, and other bodyweight exercises. eventually a friend of mine doated his crappy flat-bench and adjustable dumbbell set which last me a while but ive since out grown it and my cunning isnt enough to suffice for the lack of weights any longer so im checking out gyms for the time being. i actually tested my 1RM deadlift today and did decent with 350lbs.
I’m sure I’m not the only one, but comic books. While my two younger brothers were the athletic ones (I just had no interest), I was into reading, and drawing. ONe day during my 2nd year in college, my friend Scott, who was a few years older, made me go to the school gym so he’d have someone to train with.
I started going every day, really just for something to do socially. Once I noticed changes (a few girls commented! -lol), I was hooked. Years later, out of the three siblings in my family, I look the most like an athlete
But in all honesty, I just wanna look like the Batman -lol
Me and a friend built a “secret underground gym” in his basement when we were like 7. We had a jump rope, boxing gloves which knocked my front two teeth out, bowling balls used for curling, and some other random stuff.
My mom found out (when I came home missing two front teeth) and banned me from lifting weights untill i was 16 because they “stunt your growth”.
That being said I didn’t officially begin lifting weights untill I was 16 in which I decided to do something about being completely average in all aspects of life.
An injury to my leg in high school forced me to sit out a season of lacrosse and all I did was read Louie Simmons articles, this led me to Dave Tate, Dave led me here and the posters who were active at the time started a small fire in me that grew exponentially when I read Cycles for Pennies for the first time about a year ago.
What got me real fired up was getting asked if I worked out. To some that would be a compliment but to hear someone not know for sure whether or not I lifted(when I had been for a few years) gave me a definite “F this let’s get serious” attitude that I carry with me everyday. The fact that I discovered CFP around the same time was great timing for me.
I was big into martial arts as a teen so I lifted a bit just to “tone” and try to look more like Bruce Lee or Vandamme. I weighed about 145 at the time and thought if I gained muscle I would be too slow for MA.
I didn’t start seriously lifting until I found a link to this website from an MA website a couple of years ago. Oh and right around that time my wife made fun of me for being so damn skinny. I was 155 at the time and I’m 190 now.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I’m sure I’m not the only one, but comic books.
But in all honesty, I just wanna look like the Batman -lol
Stu
[/quote]
Your not the only one. When I was ill my little boy started to discover Spiderman, Batman, the X Men etc. One day he asked me why I didn’t look like those super heroes…
march 2007, I actually had somewhat of a gut, thought it was ugly & gross, and I also wanted a cut face, with nice jawline, so I started going for a few months mainly concentrating on losing weight & keeping muscle. I was doing about 12-15, lighter weights, and ended up gaining muscle.
Stopped for a month after a serious car crash, then started lifting heavy & friggin love being big. Gets me lots more attention from the right people (women) and now I gladly take my shirt off at the beach.
Body Building FWT!!!
oh yeah, and the movie 300 also helped out a bit hah
Im going to catch some shit for this, but 300 was a ton of shit.
It got me rededicated to my eating because if those guys were huge, then I have it in me block out the sun.
I got into bodybuilding when I was in highschool and didnt figure it out until I got to college that I had to train hard and eat big to grow. I joined a powerlifting gym and began training with some guys MUCH bigger than me. Nothing lights the fire under your ass like being 100 lbs lighter than your buddies.
I used to love watching “The Incredible Hulk” tv show as a kid. I also was in awe of the male gymnasts that I saw on TV in the summer olympics. I guess I always knew that I wanted to be strong and muscular (I’ve always been athletic).
From there I found out about Arnold and started reading muscle mags. I wanted to build muscles like the guys I saw in the pictures in those magazines. So, I started researching weight lifting.
Unfortunately, my aunt’s husband at the time put a haitus on my training. He had supposedly worked as an athletic trainer for the Detroit Redwings (which later turned out to be a load of BS, turns out the guy was a compulsive liar), and told my mother that lifting weights would stunt my growth and could be harmful for me (I was about 12 at the time).
So, I couldn’t start lifting until I was around 16 (and even then I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, so I don’t really count that in my training age). I did a short stint at the local YMCA with a friend of mine, but quickly stopped going when I didn’t see any progress (and my friend pretty much stopped accompanying me).
It wasn’t until I was 18 and asked for a weight set for Christmas that I truly started my journey into bodybuilding. Since that time I’ve played with numerous programs, got to train MA under some of the best MA coaches/practitioners in the world and eventually realized that I wanted to really focus primarily on building muscle (or should I say, re-discovered that desire from when I was a little boy). I also put on about 50 lbs of muscle, got a degree in exercise science, and got certified as a personal trainer.
It’s been a great journey thus far. But, I honestly wish I had gotten an earlier start, and realized the importance of diet much earlier in the game.
Junior High: Lots of sports. Brother-in-law bought a Total Gym. Used it out of curiosity.
Highschool: Brother bought a set of 10lb dumbells and I started doing curls. Trained in muay thai for half a year.
Year off HS: Started weight lifting like a total fucking noob.
College: Tons and tons of homework, projects, and all nighters. No time for weight training. I started to get fat.
Graduated: Working 9-5 with lots of spare time. Bought a gym pass and did lots of reading. Every once in a while I’ll run into someone I haven’t seen in awhile and they’ll say something like, “Holy shit, you got big!” or stare at my arms and poke.