This is a rant I gave a few months ago that I feel needs to be posted again for the New Year. It is mainly to motivate myself, but I think others may benefit from it as well.
I just got asked a question that I just had to rant on for a few minutes if for nothing else to make me feel better. Someone came to me an asked me why I would spend my free time working out as hard as I do? What would possibly possess me to spend 45 minutes lifting heavy weights and then spend 45 more minutes running in place or pumping it out on a cross trainer?
You want to know why? Here’s why. I initially got into this sport, and YES IT IS A SPORT, to prove something to myself and to all the people in my high school that I would be nothing more than a skinny geek that couldn’t get a girlfriend. When I played basketball and I drove by someone and scored, they “let me do that”. They said that I would walk into my ten-year reunion the same way that I left after I graduated, as nothing. I was 125 lbs. on June 4, 1999, the day I graduated. I decided that if nothing else, I was going to show up at my ten-year reunion twice the person that I was when I graduated. That meant if I wasn’t a millionaire athlete, model, or own my own company, I would weigh twice what I did in high school; 250 lbs.
As the months went by, I got bigger, stronger, better looking, and increased my self-confidence. No one can say they let me bench 225 for the first time. I did it on my own. My arms didn’t grow over eight inches because the captain of the basketball team “gave me one”. I did it on my own. As the years went by, I was going to the gym for different reasons. I was now going to challenge myself, to push myself to new records, to do things this week that I couldn’t do last week. I am setting records this week that I will break next week.
I am doing this because no one could or would do it for me. I do this because I can say with 100% certainty that no one in my area puts in the effort that I do on a daily basis. I do this because I benefit more and more with every set that I do. I get better with every rep I stick out, I get better with every minute of cardio I sweat out, and I get better with every protein shake I drink and with every cheeseburger I pass up.
Getting into bodybuilding has transformed me from a skinny geek to nothing short of a legend in my area. Yes, some of the most popular and prominent people in my hometown calls me a local legend. I have went from being the butt of jokes told by people I went to school with to an inspiration to hundreds of those same people and others that I have met. Do I look in the mirror and flex a little more often than I should? Damn right and I deserve to. You do what I have done and you earn the same privilege.
As I am typing this, I weigh 250 lbs. & I can wear a size 34 jeans. I graduated college with 2 Associates Degrees on May 11, and I am a bouncer at a bar. Look at my beginning pic and you will see my guidance counselor didn’t see security as a viable option fo rme. My ten-year reunion is two years away. I have done the Body-for-Life Challenge twice. I have trained over three hundred people and helped over two hundred more as a GNC sales rep. I have been hit on by cheerleaders that I went to school with because they did not even recognize me. My girlfirend gets a kick out of it every time it happens.
I never will win the Mr. Olympia, I may not ever step on stage, but I am a bodybuilder in every sense of the word. I have been called a tremendous representative to bodybuilding by some of the most respected names in the sport. No, I don’t have 4% bodyfat, I don’t have 22-inch arms, and I can’t pose worth a damn, but yes I am a bodybuilder. The fact that I have doubled my weight, tripled my one rep max on bench(began at 115, my PR is 375), put eight inches on my upper arms, and put myself through the ringer every single day proves it.
Why am I doing this? Because I have the balls to. Because I have the dedication to. Because I don’t fear pain. Hell, there ain’t a drug on the planet that can equal the high I get after 25 sets of legs or benching 225 for 20 reps.. I’ll eat anything that won’t eat me first just so I can have some protein in me for that day. I walk in that gym like I am a World Heavyweight Champion because for that small period of time, I am.
Why am i doing this? Here is a better question. Why aren’t you?
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