Hello, let me tell you how I became a bodybuilder. Like most medical students, he had little time or interest in hitting the gym regularly. I wanted to lose some weight, but the thought of exercising left me uninspired. Then I discovered aerobics and found out how you can burn body fat by raising your heart rate to a level in the range of 70-80% of your maximum cardiac output. I started using the “StairMaster” machine at a local gym and wearing headphones for a 20 to 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 about 10 pounds of weight which was mostly body fat and dropped to 145 pounds.
One day while on the ladder, I noticed all the dumbbells, weights, and weights that were in another area of the gym and asked a member of staff what they were about. He told me there were two ways to go: 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 I looked like a teenager.
So, with the help of the staff trainers, I started exercising with weight 3-4 times a week. What I didn’t realize was that I had great genetics for muscle building and it was soon 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 I could about bodybuilding on bodybuilding. After several months I was hooked and couldn’t wait to hit the gym and try new and different exercises. The trainers told me to give up aerobic exercise and that 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 10 pounds of muscle. Now he 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 weight. I spent an entire summer learning how to isolate and train my back, which was lagging behind my chest, according to one of the senior trainers in the gym. I switched to a harder bodybuilding gym and added 10 pounds of muscle each year for the next 3-4 years, at which point I weighed 185 pounds with only 7% body fat. I had reached my genetic potential and got stuck at that weight by watching my diet and taking a bunch of amino acid tablets for extra protein.
I was preparing to compete while receiving compliments and stares. I felt like a transformed person and, in fact, I have much greater self-esteem and confidence now that I have become a successful bodybuilder.