Hello, let me tell you how I became a bodybuilder. Like most medical students, he had little time or interest in going to the gym regularly. I wanted to lose some weight, but the thought of working out left me uninspired. Then I discovered aerobic exercise and how you could burn body fat by raising your heart rate to a level in the 70-80% range of your maximum cardiac output. I started doing the “StairMaster” machine at a local gym and with headphones a 20-30 minute session at an aerobic heart rate was no problem; in fact I ended up doing aerobic training almost every day for several months. I lost 10 pounds or so of weight that was mostly body fat and down to 145 pounds.
One day while on the stair climber I noticed all the dumbbells, barbells and free weights sitting in another area of the gym and asked one of the staff what it was about. He told me that there were two paths to follow: a slim, lean and compact body or a body with curves and rounded muscles. The second way, he said, was achieved by weight training while keeping body fat low with aerobic exercise after the weight training session. This, of course, required spending more time in the gym, but I was very curious what effect lifting weights would have on my now flat but lean body. In fact, someone in the locker room looked at me and said that he looked like a teenager.
So with the help of the staff trainers, I started working out with weights 3-4 times a week. What I didn’t realize was that I had great genetics for muscle building and it soon became quite obvious that my shoulders and chest were getting rounder and bigger. I started learning how to isolate my muscle groups and started reading everything about bodybuilding I could find. After several months I was hooked and couldn’t wait to get to the gym and try new and different exercises. The trainers told me to give up aerobic exercise and I would build muscle more easily. I changed my diet to a high protein, low fat, moderate carb diet and started eating 4-5 smaller meals throughout the day. The results were amazing and real; my self esteem started to grow and in the first year of bodybuilding i gained 10lbs of muscle. Now I was definitely hooked.
Over the next 4 years my training became more intense as I developed different exercises that helped me isolate a particular muscle and feel the contraction while working with weights. I spent an entire summer learning how to isolate and train my back, which was lagging behind my chest, according to one of the gym’s head trainers. I switched to a harder bodybuilding gym and added 10lbs of muscle every year for the next 3-4 years, at which point I was 185lbs with only 7% body fat. I had reached my genetic potential and stuck to that weight by watching my diet and taking lots of amino acid tablets for extra protein.
I was preparing to compete while receiving accolades and stars. I felt like a transformed person and actually have much more self esteem and confidence now that I have become a successful bodybuilder.