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I'm going to the gym tomorrow. I know this doesn't sound earth shattering, but it's a big step for me because I haven't been in one for the last 13 years, ever since a traumatic experience sent me running for the door.
The year was 1996 and I was 17. I was a year away from taking my A levels and I was a terrible student. But I do remember one lesson vividly. It was a PE (Physical Education) class and the teacher was taking us on a tour of the school gym.
"This is the bench press machine. If you want a bigger chest, you use the bench press machine. This is the leg press machine. if you want bigger quadriceps, you use the leg press machine."
Well that sounded easy enough. I am naturally skinny and at that time, weighed 50kg (110 pounds) on a good day and was about 1.77m (about 5"9' ) tall. I was so thin, in fact, that when I sat on the toilet seat I felt like my body was going to fold in half and slide right in. Hoping to buff up and get laid, I started going to the gym once a week.
Now I know this sounds dumb. Going to the gym once a week without a diet plan does not make a successful bodybuilding programme. But you have to remember, this was 1996, and this was a completely different world from the one we live in now.
In those days, the hottest company around was Amazon.com, so named because the Yahoo search engine sorted websites by alphabetical order. The closest thing to a text message was paging 07734 to a friend, which spelled "hELLO", unless your friend didn't turn his pager upside down, in which case it just spelled 07734. The domain name google.com had not been registered yet. Surfing the net was done with a dial up modem that made a funny noise when it connected. And download speeds were so slow you could surf the whole night and only see 8 women (16 if you were looking for lesbians). Even worse, the pictures loaded slowly from top to bottom, so you were never quite sure if you were looking at a shemale until you'd wasted 10 minutes.
In short, information was very, very hard to find. And science was not moving at anything like the speed it does now. Nowadays a trainer can post a programme online and in a couple of months, the whole world will be getting feedback from people who try it out. Not back then.
So I had no idea that shovelling junk down my throat was going to kill my physique. I was never going to get fat, so why did I care? I had no idea how important sleep was to the development of a good body. I didn't know that machines were useless for someone like me, and that I needed heavy dumbbells and barbells. I didn't know that there was such a thing as an ectomorph, or that I was one. And I didn't know that as a 17 year old, my testosterone levels were preparing to peak and this was the best time for me to start working out.
Had I known any of that, this story might have turned out very differently.
I remember my last day in the gym vividly. It was my 8th session or so. I was at the bench press machine when the school netball team walked in.
Now I don't like sweating, and I need a damned good reason to exercise. 8 good reasons with ponytails had just walked into the gym. "I'm going to impress these skinny girls," I said to myself. With the extra stimulation and my youthful testosterone coursing through my veins, I upped the weight on the bench press machine to a personal record breaking FIFTEEN kilogrammes (about 33 pounds).
Fwah, I felt like a man, I can tell you. I gritted my teeth and strained away at that bench press machine, feeling my chest expanding, sweat dripping out of every pore in my body.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the skinny netball girls load a barbell up with what looked like my bodyweight in plates and start doing calf raises.
Eh?
All around her her skinny friends were grabbing dangerous looking gym implements and running through warm ups with massive amounts of weight, and then going on to do their REAL exercises with even MORE weight. And they made it look so EASY.
I suddenly realised what I was - a skinny geek struggling to build up a nonexistent chest. And while making a fool of myself was painful enough, making a fool of myself in front of GIRLS was worse.
I grabbed my towel and slunk out the door. Though I bore no outward marks of the whole gym experience - no muscles or even definition - I knew that the mental scars would stay with me a long, long time.
13 years, in fact. 13 years.
EDIT: So I made it into the gym today... "gym" is not really the right word. It's really the Health and Fitness Room at the local community centre. I felt really awkward asking for the key, but I did it anyway and I was the only one in there.
Halfway through my workout this senior citizen who looked twice my size and twice my age came in and started hefting weights and it was a bit awkward, but I just smiled at him and did my thing after an initial failed conversation.
Him: Hey, I haven't seen you in a long time!
Me: Actually, you haven't seen me at all.
Him: Oh, your first time?
Me: yes.
Him: Exams over?
Me: I'm not a student.
*awkward silence*
At least I still have my youthful good looks.
It feels good to overcome my phobia. Hopefully this is the start of great things.
 
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How long have you been exercising at home till now? Your last blog was about killer-farts gained from protein drinks right?
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Do you have any visible results already ?
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Russian Federation386 Posts
Nice write-up ^^
GL there, I'm rather skinny myself (194 cm tall and only 74 kg), but I had some health problems recently so I couldn't continue my exercizing which I started about 8 months earlier. Can't wait to get better and continue ^^
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I just haven't dragged my ass to a gym since I hurt my shoulder playing hockey and got fat. I've always had a poor diet, but now that I'm not in sports anymore it's much harder to lose the weight and keep it off with the bad eating habits I've grown up with.
Been just over 4 years for me. I've gained a lot of weight, more than I care to say. I used to go to the gym almost every weekday as we had a YMCA next door to my highschool school. I'd do either Cardio or hit the weights, sometimes going just to play basketball for fun.
I wouldn't be nervous about going back. Everyone starts somewhere and nobody is going to look down on you for exercising and being healthy.
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I enjoyed your story (heh), and hope your experience in the gym is better this time around. I personally need to jump on the fitness wagon myself, as I need to lose a good 20-30 pounds, but it's just so hard to get motivated about it. :/
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i want to go to a gym but i just dont wanna go so far and pay...so i do push ups at home and im like you when you're 17
179 cm 128 pounds (18 years old)
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nice story, storyteller . lol
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United States24612 Posts
I didn't care much for your story about the gym, but I enjoyed reading you reminisce about '96.
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konadora
Singapore66117 Posts
Hearing your story, I should intensify my training.
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Sounds like a potential version of me. Nice reminiscence.
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Nice lol. Why don't you just workout at home? All you really need is a bench a barbell and some dumbells and a pullup bar to do basically everything.
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Luckily for me, not doing workout was the only nerdlike thing I didn't do.
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United States22883 Posts
Haha, that was a great story. I have a pretty strict no flirting policy in the gym, so I can avoid killing myself on weights.
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Good job man. I hope everything works out.
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It's never too late; but now that you're an old man you should go easy on those exercises and your body!
+ Show Spoiler +
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Show your fighting spirit~
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O_O thirteen years
good luck!
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Damn dude, benching 30 pounds is pathetic for a 110 pound person. Sounds awful, when i weighed that much i could bench my own weight and max at a little over, round 130. But gj on going back to the gym
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I liked the bit about 1996 :D
I'm also tall and skinny. I do lots of push ups, pull ups and sit ups and that works well. Tall skinny guys can look kind of freakish if they lift weights too much.
Good luck at the gym!
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On July 20 2009 00:18 Pengu1n wrote:
Nice lol. Why don't you just workout at home? All you really need is a bench a barbell and some dumbells and a pullup bar to do basically everything.
I do this.
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wow, nice story
good luck with working out
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all you need is a good set of dumbbells to work out.. if you don't want to get embarrassed in a public place, just work out at home
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50 kg?!?!??!? holy crap, I'm SKINNY and I weigh 70 kg at least O_O
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On July 20 2009 04:43 jyhlol wrote:
all you need is a good set of dumbbells to work out.. if you don't want to get embarrassed in a public place, just work out at home
This is false. Don't waste your time working out like a fag. Deadlift 500 and you will be a big motherfucker. It will take years but you will get there if you don't pussy out.
Here is something to start out your meathead career:
Monday: Chest
Flat/Incline Barbell Bench 2x4-8 (that is 2 sets, 4-8 reps, reaching failure on each set)
Dumbbell Bench 2x6-10
Dips 3x6-10
Cable flyes until you get a pump or whatever
Tuesday: Back
Deadlift 2x4-6 (if you don't feel like you had back surgery the next day you ain't going heavy enough. If you even think about doing these with dumbells instead of a barbell you are a bitch)
T-Bar Rows/Barbell Rows 3-4x8-12 (Watch your form)
D-Handle Pulldowns 2-3x6-10
Pullover Machine 2-3x12-15
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Legs
Back Squat 2x4-8 (Go as heavy as possible for two sets... Obviously wearing a heavy belt, as you would with deadlifts)
Leg Press 2x6-10
Hack Squat 2x6-10
***IF YOU TRAINED HARD YOU SHOULD BE ABOUT READY TO PUKE AT THIS TIME
If you do puke, your workout is over at this point, go home and be miserable
***
Stiff-Leg Deadlift or Glute-Ham Raise 2-3x10-15
Leg Curls 2-3x10-20
Calf Raise 2-4x10-20
Friday: Arms
Biceps:
I don't like barbell curls for biceps. They put too much stress on your wrists and will give you tendonitis. So use a combination of preacher machine curls, preacher DB curls, reverse curls, tricep bar curls, pinwheel curls, etc... Try to do 10 sets of any of these, usually about 10 reps.
Triceps: Do a shitload of pushdowns/db extensions, like 6-8 sets, you can also do close grip bench press for a couple heavy sets of 6-10. If you end up with elbow pain or have trouble extending your elbow, reduce the amount of heavy extensions and do more close grip/tricep dip shit.
Saturday: Shoulders/Traps
Overhead Press (Seated or standing) 2-3x6-10
DB Overhead Press 2-3x6-10
Lateral Raise 2-4x10-15
Face Pulls 2-4x10-15
Barbell Shrugs 3-4x6-12
Machine Shrugs 3-4x10-15
********
This is by no means set in stone. You need to change shit up after a while or you will beat yourself into the ground and not make progress. I personally change little things every workout.
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United States12607 Posts
On July 19 2009 22:33 The Storyteller wrote:
In those days, the hottest company around was Amazon.com, so named because the Yahoo search engine sorted websites by alphabetical order. The closest thing to a text message was paging 07734 to a friend, which spelled "hELLO", unless your friend didn't turn his pager upside down, in which case it just spelled 07734. The domain name google.com had not been registered yet. Surfing the net was done with a dial up modem that made a funny noise when it connected. And download speeds were so slow you could surf the whole night and only see 8 women (16 if you were looking for lesbians). Even worse, the pictures loaded slowly from top to bottom, so you were never quite sure if you were looking at a shemale until you'd wasted 10 minutes.
This paragraph is gold!
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How the hell was that a traumatic experience that kept you out of the gym for 13 years? No matter it was a good story...storyteller even thou I think you spiced things up quite a bit and Im not totally convinced this is 100% true and accurate...human memories and all that.
GL in the gym tomorrow, don't get intimidated by those big burly girls with boobs bigger than your biceps!
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Thirteen years? Damn~
Well, good luck yo~
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You're a good comedic writer. Good luck in the gym. Start with compound exercises for awhile, find someone to show you proper form (deadlift, bench, squat). Also, in terms of "changing shit up" as that guy above said, you don't need to worry about that until you've been working out for at least 3-4 months. Even then, you really only need to change the speed / weight / number of reps, rather than the exercises themselves (although it will be good to try a few different ones for the same muscle groups). You want to stimulate the deep and shallow muscle fibers or whatever the hell they're called (too lazy to google atm - basically the muscle fibers when you do really heavy reps, but can only do a few, vs the muscle fibers when you do light weights with more reps)
On July 20 2009 03:48 GreEny K wrote:
Damn dude, benching 30 pounds is pathetic for a 110 pound person. Sounds awful, when i weighed that much i could bench my own weight and max at a little over, round 130. But gj on going back to the gym
I don't believe you could bench 130 lbs when you were 110 lbs. That's like saying I could bench 130 lbs when I was 13 years old.
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LoL! Epic writeup.
I'm quite a bit of a gym rat I'm not going to lie, I just even came back from the gym and had a protein shake and I'm waiting on it to digest before my real meal so I'm killing time here. Just 2 years ago I was a scrawny fuck, but that didn't stop me. I have gained some 35lbs of muscle since and I have skinny kids in the gym asking me for advice all the time.
I'm friendly though and so is most other bigger guy you see in a gym. A few pieces of advice I would give to you is to never be afraid to walk up to anybody in a gym and talk to them. You will learn alot, but at the same time don't take everything people say as the real truth. Research yourself and form you own opinions. Second, don't be stupid and put on weights that will kill you or injure you because you are NOT superman. Patience pays off in the gym, and you will need alot more than 8 sessions to change your body. Third, training hard is important but so is not overtraining. Lastly, food is your best friend and if you want your body to grow you will need alot of it, so eat harder than you lift and dont eat too much junk. Food controls everything so read online and learn how to eat right.
And of course, if you have any questions feel free to friend me and send me a PM at any time. I don't know everything, but I have a pretty good idea when it comes to most things gym.
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Thanks for all the advice. Yes, I have been working out at home, but all I have are dumbbells and a pull up bar at the foot of my apartment block. It's enough for general fitness, but for some exercises it's really not safe to do without at least a rack.
What really irritates me is how easy it has been these past 6 - 7 weeks. By the 3rd week I was heavier than I had ever been in my life. I can't fit most of my shirts anymore because my chest, back and shoulders are broader. My shorts are tight because my butt and thighs are bigger. And I don't even own a barbell.
This is something I really could have done at any time after I hit 17, when I first had access to a gym. I pretty much spent my adult life undernourished and unfit. I really wish I'd learnt in school what I know now.
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On July 20 2009 05:21 ChaseR wrote:
How the hell was that a traumatic experience that kept you out of the gym for 13 years? No matter it was a good story...storyteller even thou I think you spiced things up quite a bit and Im not totally convinced this is 100% true and accurate...human memories and all that.
GL in the gym tomorrow, don't get intimidated by those big burly girls with boobs bigger than your biceps!
My ego is a very fragile thing... sob...
I guess what kept me out, apart from the thought of being the weakling aurrounded by beautiful people, is that I thought it was a waste of my time. I seriously thought I was genetically unable to build muscle because everytime I worked out, nothing happened. It was only much later that I learned about the importance of things like diet and sleep.
Even now I'm a bit intimidated by the thought of working out with someone watching, but at least I know it is doing good things for me, so I'm more likely to stick with it.
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Storyteller,,you shud post some before and after pictures of yourself. update pictures like every 2 weeks. my tip for you is,, eat more eggs like 8 egg white and 2 egg yolks in a day. eat them between meals.
example:
7am breakfast
9am 2eggs
12pm lunch
2.30pm 2eggs
6pm dinner
8.30pm 2eggs
before sleep 2 eggs.
1 egg give u around 6g of protein
u get 48g of protein a day from eggs alone
30 days u get 1440g proteins that a lot of muscle to work on.
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EPT
