Where did you start your fitness journey at and why?

[IronSoul]

I was bullied a little bit in school, and became interested when I found the Charles Atlas ad in the back of a comic book. I bought the book, and started training at 13 or 14 years old, using a cement weight set I had inherited from my uncle who died young. I made that set last through high school and summer during college, even as I ran track and worked on our dairy farm. I was fast and strong with huge legs for a runner.

Then I graduated college and gave up running in favor of lifting. At around age 35 near the start of my professional career I decided to really push it, and got my squats well over 400# all natural, and my bench up to 200#. I did the permabulk method, but was not terribly fat. Then I injured my back, took a few years off, got really fat. I started back lifting in 2009 and decided to give it one last run as a nattie, to see if I could gain significant muscle while eating a lot of food. I got up to 260# and probably 30%bf and looked terrible. I hated how I looked and felt. When I dieted down, I had gained only a couple pounds of muscle in a year. That was my turning point. I started AAS and hired a trainer and said f*** it I am going balls to the wall and wish I had done it years ago.

2 years have passed since then and I have gained 20 to 25 lbs of new muscle, and lost 40+ lbs of fat, and feel like a 25 year old again!

Now I can't wait to see what the next 6 months brings, not to mention the next 6 years. My goal is to lean up by summer, so I am at or below 10% bf, then to bulk up over the next few years to 250 and less than 10%. I want to start competing in BBing in the next year or so, to see whether I enjoy it. And if I like it, I'll continue until they put me in the ground . . .

Hell yeah woody! Tearing that shit up now. You have made some tremendous progress and make some great decisions with the trainer and everything else IMO. Keep putting in the work brother, you are gonna be one strong MF walking around at 10% or less. Good work

 

[sootywooty]

Started at 49, Nov 2009 I started lifting after 30yrs away... I was on meds for high BP and Type II, because of the hard work and lifestyle change I dropped the diabetes meds in Aug 2010.

But I thought I could do better, asked the gym owner to take me on as a client and he helped me step it up, I competed in 2011 in the NANBF as a 50+ Master and did great...

Love being the muscled up grand dad... 2014 I'm getting into Track and Field (sprints)...

Thats Great Gregger you cured your diabetes so quick! I have been taking the meds for 7 mths now, but my BS dips right down a few hours after training i find, but seem to rise to around 6.5 just after training seems wierd really.

 

[Gregger]

Thats Great Gregger you cured your diabetes so quick! I have been taking the meds for 7 mths now, but my BS dips right down a few hours after training i find, but seem to rise to around 6.5 just after training seems wierd really.

Thanks!... I wouldn't say I've been cured, I've been told that someday I'll be back on them, but as long as I keep adding or at least maintaining lean muscle and being strict on my diet I'll be able to keep it at bay for the time being.

I still self test, mostly random... Early AM and around my workouts.
Funny, I'd test normal just before and when testing after weight training it would spike up... Odd I thought, I expected it to drop during.
I reported it to the Doc... He wants me to do the same testing before/after my HIIT cardio...
Damn Doc's always with the flippin' cardio... BAH!

 

[sootywooty]

Thanks!... I wouldn't say I've been cured, I've been told that someday I'll be back on them, but as long as I keep adding or at least maintaining lean muscle and being strict on my diet I'll be able to keep it at bay for the time being.

I still self test, mostly random... Early AM and around my workouts.
Funny, I'd test normal just before and when testing after weight training it would spike up... Odd I thought, I expected it to drop during.
I reported it to the Doc... He wants me to do the same testing before/after my HIIT cardio...
Damn Doc's always with the flippin' cardio... BAH!

Yes i told my Doc about this and didn't seem to worried! I have read the liver can inject more glocose when one is training hard, and also it does very early morning to prepare energy for the actions of the day, but an injection of insulin from the pancaras kills alot of the effect it has on ones BS levels.

 

[Wallyd]

I was the fat kid in my younger days. I was bullied, made fun of, no self confidence at all not to mention I couldn't get a girls attention for nothing! I started lifting at 15. I got too skinny, I would only eat if my stomache growled. I saw pictures of myself and decided that look wasn't going to get it so I started reading and prepping a better diet. Once I saw results & started looking better I was hooked! Them came the mass & muscles! Followed by the definition!

 

[JR Ewing]

I started in late '87, right after HS. Guys in the mags still looked very good back then - Haney, Shawn Ray, Mike Christian, Phil Hill, Strydom, Quinn, et al. Them and also the old timers like Sergio, Arnold, Mentzers, etc were what I wanted to look like. I eventually adapted my goals to more realistic personal expectations though. Started out at a skinny-fat 135 @ 5'7, barely able to bench 100 pounds and squat a little more. It took me nearly 20 years to get within a hair of 230, more than triple my bench, and increase my squat a good fivefold - all with no drugs. In the past several years I've gotten more into just maintaining and listening to my body - not trying to kill myself and my joints trying to set PRs every week like I did religiously for a couple of decades.

 

[IronSoul]

Awesome responses everyone. Cool to see everyone's start and hard work over the years

 

[nutnless220]

I started weights because everyone made fun of me and my vestigial tail. It's more of a nub, really. The spine just goes on a little longer than it should. The neighborhood kids hated and threw rocks at me because of my father. He was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum...

At fifteen I bought a magazine and saw the Charles Atlas ads. I ordered the Atlas course and began my journey. After practicing twice a day for only 15 years I had added 35 pounds to my bench and almost 10 pounds to my Romanian deadlifts. Whew... It was getting good.

Now 30 years old and pushing 270 with only 26 percent body fat, I knew it was time to take it to another level. I hired a trainer at the YMCA who had a card and everything. I watched reruns on the TiVo of the hulkster telling me to take my vitamins and train hard. That summer I even bought some body fortress protein from walmart and downed it with the raw eggs that I kept in my truck.

Everywhere I went, people stood up and took notice. I just smiled, flexed my huge 15 and 3/4 in. arms and told them I was all natural. And still taking my vitamins. They were like "What ?"

I just waited my turn and paid for another 5 lb. jug of body fortress. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I turned sideways and left thru the auto opening doors.

I got so big after another 6 months of training that I was asked to leave the YMCA. I opened my own gym so that I could train hard, throw weights and scream at the top of my lungs as I curled in the squat rack.

Now, Years later, I look back on my career and realize I owe a debt I can never repay to my mentors, Charles Atlas, Joe Weider, the Hulkerster and Jay Cuttler.

 

[woodswise]

Bro are you smoking some of that whacky tabacky?

I started weights because everyone made fun of me and my vestigial tail. It's more of a nub, really. The spine just goes on a little longer than it should. The neighborhood kids hated and threw rocks at me because of my father. He was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum...

At fifteen I bought a magazine and saw the Charles Atlas ads. I ordered the Atlas course and began my journey. After practicing twice a day for only 15 years I had added 35 pounds to my bench and almost 10 pounds to my Romanian deadlifts. Whew... It was getting good.

Now 30 years old and pushing 270 with only 26 percent body fat, I knew it was time to take it to another level. I hired a trainer at the YMCA who had a card and everything. I watched reruns on the TiVo of the hulkster telling me to take my vitamins and train hard. That summer I even bought some body fortress protein from walmart and downed it with the raw eggs that I kept in my truck.

Everywhere I went, people stood up and took notice. I just smiled, flexed my huge 15 and 3/4 in. arms and told them I was all natural. And still taking my vitamins. They were like "What ?"

I just waited my turn and paid for another 5 lb. jug of body fortress. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I turned sideways and left thru the auto opening doors.

I got so big after another 6 months of training that I was asked to leave the YMCA. I opened my own gym so that I could train hard, throw weights and scream at the top of my lungs as I curled in the squat rack.

Now, Years later, I look back on my career and realize I owe a debt I can never repay to my mentors, Charles Atlas, Joe Weider, the Hulkerster and Jay Cuttler.

 

[ChrisLindsay9]

A few years ago, I was a non-active chunky monkey that played video games, watched movies, drank lots of beer and wine. I saw how my brother had dropped some weight by tracking his nutrition with an app called Lose It!. I was inspired to try and do the same. I ended up dropping 30 pounds by a very gradual calorie deficit diet.

I ended up losing some muscle this way, so I hired a trainer to help me get back the strength I had lost. I had suffered from back spasms for much of my adult life and wanted someone who could help me re-gain strength without aggravating it. With simple compound exercises using lightweight dumbbells, I was seeing results within a couple of months. I was getting ripped. I couldn't believe it. And from there, I continued to train in the bodybuilding approach for another year or so, and then switched to a powerlifting program after I went to watch a competition. I still maintain a general leanness, as it's kind of nice to have some definition (and abs!).

And my back spasms are no longer apparent. I have strengthened my lower back to such a degree that I no longer suffer from the debilitating pain and spasms that had plagued me for so long. This is by far the best thing strength training has done for me.

 

[woodswise]

^^^^ Nice post bro. Thanks for sharing!

 

[graniteman]

I started weights because everyone made fun of me and my vestigial tail. It's more of a nub, really. The spine just goes on a little longer than it should. The neighborhood kids hated and threw rocks at me because of my father. He was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum...

At fifteen I bought a magazine and saw the Charles Atlas ads. I ordered the Atlas course and began my journey. After practicing twice a day for only 15 years I had added 35 pounds to my bench and almost 10 pounds to my Romanian deadlifts. Whew... It was getting good.

Now 30 years old and pushing 270 with only 26 percent body fat, I knew it was time to take it to another level. I hired a trainer at the YMCA who had a card and everything. I watched reruns on the TiVo of the hulkster telling me to take my vitamins and train hard. That summer I even bought some body fortress protein from walmart and downed it with the raw eggs that I kept in my truck.

Everywhere I went, people stood up and took notice. I just smiled, flexed my huge 15 and 3/4 in. arms and told them I was all natural. And still taking my vitamins. They were like "What ?"

I just waited my turn and paid for another 5 lb. jug of body fortress. I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I turned sideways and left thru the auto opening doors.

I got so big after another 6 months of training that I was asked to leave the YMCA. I opened my own gym so that I could train hard, throw weights and scream at the top of my lungs as I curled in the squat rack.

Now, Years later, I look back on my career and realize I owe a debt I can never repay to my mentors, Charles Atlas, Joe Weider, the Hulkerster and Jay Cuttler.

Mua hahhaaa Those Belgiums are a evil people....