How I changed the shape of my body. This is my story…..
I feel it is the right time to share with you my journey; going from a skinny egotistical teenager who ...only wanted to be popular, explaining how I transformed into a man who is happy with his body and enjoys expressing himself.
I will attempt to keep this as compact as possible as I describe 11 years in a short story.
In April 2002 – I went to the gym for the first time in my life. I went for a number of reasons; because I was tired of being skinny and lacking muscle, to look good, to impress the ladies, to be complimented on my physique when I played basketball. All superficial pressures which later caused my downfall.
I remember my first few months in the gym so well, just like a child I was intrigued by every exercise and every person’s routine in the gym. What are they doing and why are they doing it that way? Studying sports science at the time I had base level understanding of exercise and took it upon myself to research weight training and apply some of the techniques I read about.
I will never forget the day I saw a guy lifting 60kgs on the bench press. I laughed at him in my mind thinking that it looked light…. why is he struggling? So when he had finished I had a go; to my shock the bar came crashing down and I could not lift the weight, I was stuck under the weight shouting for help in the middle of a gym. Embarrassed isn’t the word as the same guy I had laughed at in my mind came to my rescue. The funny thing about it is my ego was so big that even after the embarrassment, I still thought I could lift the same weight that had crushed me. I was a sore loser and did not want to believe others could be better than me.
Years past and as my physique developed my ego grew. University was a competitive environment mixing the gym and basketball with “showing off” on campus. In contrast, I met some amazing people at University and we all shared our knowledge and spurred each other on in the weights room. However, it was still about ego… who was the strongest who had the best body, plenty of gym camaraderie during this period.
After University I became a full time personal trainer and then later a gym manager. I was fortunate to have plenty of time to work out, experiment, research and go crazy in the gym. When I was not in the gym, I would just keep reading and making notes about the most beneficial training methods and composed a folder of various training theories. My routines were incredibly diverse at this time and I wanted to try and master everything. During this phase of my life my ego was at its highest, all I wanted to be was the strongest and be praised for it. I wanted people to believe I could do everything to a high level. I put an incredible amount of unnecessary pressure on myself to match a superficial ideal. I lifted, heavier, heavier and heavier until one day my body could not cope.
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