Been putting off starting a Journey of my own for a while.
First off, Im not a competitive bodybuilder (although I may well take to the stage at some point in the future, but not yet), & my training compared to a lot of Animals is somewhat unorthodox in so much as most folk here have 1 sport/training style. People who have read previous posts of mine may be aware that Im a competitive track athlete, & train as such. However, I have a love for bodybuilding training, and admire the physique that comes along with it.
Probably the best way to describe me is a bodybuilding sprinter. Or a sprinting bodybuilder. Take your pick.
Right, my Journey. Along the way there's going to be rants, about all sorts (I have a tendancy to go off on tangents), training logs, and maybe the odd delve into the dark recesses of my mind.
So, briefly, who am I and how did I come to be where Im at?
My father used to be a bit of a bodybuilder (no contests, he just enjoyed lifting weights) and as such I always had a bit of a fascination with it. This would've been the path I followed but, I'd always been something of a quick runner and at 15, just when I was ready to hit the iron full on, I went and broke a couple of school records during House Athletics (sports day). A week later I'd joined the local athletics club, Lincoln Wellington A.C. For a couple of years, at least, the iron was on the backburner.
Now, as a competive athlete, I lived 100% clean. No alcohol etc. When we hit 18 my friends & myself used to go out to the clubs, I was always on orange juice. Aged 20, I started dabbling with the iron. I'd sufered around 18 months of various injuries on the track & was growing disillusioned with it, shortly after, I left the track entirely.
Training in my bedroom & garage with little equipment, I made some rapid progress. Within a year, I was still going out to clubs (still not really drinking much, even though I was no longer involved in athletics) & people were asking what gym I went to & so on. I grew out of my garage and joined the local gym.
Soon afterwards, it was noted that I was of a similar size as the nightclub doormen. I decided, seein as I dont really drink, I may as well get a job as a doorman, still get to see my friends & make some extra money. So I did.
Here comes the shitty stuff.
I met a lass doing the job (a colleague, gorgeous, petite, seemed all sweet but she was hard as fuck). Fell madly in love. Now I used to train at 6:30am, after a night on the doors. Now myself and my lady would finish work, and we'd be cuddled up in bed at about the same time as I would be leaving for the gym. I didnt touch a single dumbell , stopped eating right, and lost 2 stone of lean, hard earned muscle in 6 months.
The relationship ended, not my choice at all (2 and a half years later, Im still not over her) and eventually working together was just too hard. So I left and started studying to become a Personal Trainer. Rejoined the track, went back to the gym.
Plus having been exposed to some fairly heavy violence in the job over a couple of years, things that used to shock me now no longer had any effect. Something that started to bother me a little and as a result Im now what people consider to be a very cold hearted person when it comes to things such as violence, gore etc.
Today, Im a self employed Personal Trainer, managing director of my own personal training company. I never speak to my ex these days. we havnt spoken in well over a year. She always used to say I never had any ambition. Fact is, I did have loads of it but when I met her, I'd have been content to live in a cardboard box if it meant I could share my cardboard box with her. Now, 1 day I'll get back in touch with her, when I've got my own gym & say "look what I've achieved".
Until then, however, there's unfinished business elsewhere. I still hold the junior 60m club record, but there's a whole host of club records that are going to be mine. Indoors, the senior 60m, 150m, 200m and 300m. Outdoors, the 100m , 200m & 300m. Im going to take those records, whilst having a physique like a bodybuilder.
Now it must be stated that Im not gigantic, nor massively strong in comparison to some of my fellow Animals. Plus Im fairly short. Vital statistics are 5ft6, weighing 170. BF 12.5%. What people dont see is that I have a lot of muscle but actually a pretty small skeletal frame, as a result everybody who I speak to thinks that Im around 190-195, because I look much heavier than I actually am.
I can also put on a hoodie & look like I've just droppped 3 stone instantly. (something that suprised the other PTs at my gym, none of whom are well built in any sense other than about 20 pounds of excess lard) when they were told about me & Id been described as being "built like a brick shithouse". I turned up wearing my jacket & Ive since been told that they all looked at me and thought "he's tiny". Then soon after I broke out my training vest for a session. I've always been pretty vascular, & that along with being pretty muscular, the general response was "where the fuck was he hiding that?"
So that's where I am right now, looking to debunk the myth of all personal trainers being useless arseholes (altho a lot of them are, but not all) & bring an air of respectibilty to my profession, looking to steadily expand my business, spread the Animal ethics because there's way too many idiots in the gym showing no respect and/or trying to intimidate other gym users, and, of course, looking to smash those club records.
That's a fairly lengthy introduction. I'll make no apologies for use of bad language in the future, I'll try & keep it to a minimum but I tell it like it is.