TheChad wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:14 pm Much like yourself I grew up being the hardgainer and was always skinning. I was always blessed with the girls tho. In my early teens I got into drugs of all kinds. I didn’t get into working out until I was 19. Been at it over two decades now! I fell In love with it from the first day. I always idled Arnold and Stallone growing up and wanted to be muscular like them. Because of everyone always calling me skinny, I still have issues with always thinking I’m small even if I’m the biggest guy in the room. I don’t feel I will ever be content with my size.

Vision wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 11:18 pm That is an absolutely fantastic story man and I actually visioned your entire journey as I was reading.. good stuff man..

For myself the journey long before I even touched any weights. I was also a skinny kid and I was picked on and bullied because of my stutter and a nervous tic. I ended up having behavior problems because of all of my frustrations that were bottled down. I ended up in a school for kids that had behavior problems and for myself during that time was very scary.. I was literally watching the worst of the worst fist fight with each other every day.. long as they were fighting each other and leaving me alone that was all I needed.. then it came time that I was getting picked on, after watching everyone else fist fight all the time I knew I had to throw down, or I was going to be taken advantage of for a long time.. not knowing what I was doing I threw down and I remember the first altercation very well. I was very surprised with how easily I pumbled this supposed badass kid. I was more surprised than everyone else that was watching. Then came the next kid not too long after, and I walked right through him.. how could this be?
There was a couple more instances thereafter and I held my own pretty good. not only did I earn the respect for my peers but I also stuck up for all of the other kids that got picked on . I actually hung out with a lot of the kids that we would call nerds, they were my best friends and they were pretty awesome kids, no one mess with anybody in our little click because of me.
With this new sense of pride I wanted to push it further and I remember looking in a magazine and I seen a weight bench, and I don't know what it was but something in me just wanted it..
That Christmas my mother bought me a weight set that was used from one of her friends.. I can't describe to you that feeling I had when I first laid my eyes on it until this day nothing in life as compared to it besides my children..
My mother's friend also passed down boxes and boxes of bodybuilding magazines from her older son.. I've never seen anything like it.. with my weight bench and these magazines I would just disappear into the tool shed for hours on end every night.. I can still smell the kerosene heater to this day.. I wanted nothing more then to be a monster. But my life was just starting and I had a lot of mistakes to make, and one of them was steroids at the age of 19.. it was foolish, however it turned into the best thing I ever did. I used off and on throughout my twenties ultimately staying on permanently at the latter years of my twenties.. I'm 42 today and I've never came off and almost 15 years.. if you met me, you would never think I had a tic or a stutter as a child.. these aren't things that just go away but you learn how to adapt to them. But I tell people they kind of laugh and Snicker and they don't believe me.. ok , whatever like I'm making it up? Lol..
I have had my ups and downs, my moments of defeat and also my moments of climbing the ranks once again earning my triumph.. I have learned many things in life and I've lost many things in life, and I have replaced them with better things in life.. But ultimately this way of life provided me with the approach and Outlook that I have, whether it's being a field supervisor on construction, or just leading by example and other aspects.. whenever I see or hear a story about an underdog, I don't think anyone can appreciate it as much as I do.. when I hear an underdog talk about his or her story, I am mentally giving them a high-five and a chest bump.. the reality is everyone is an underdog at some degree, what defines us and separates us from the rest is making that clear conscious decision for self improvement, and that goes for anything in life!!