Young guy performing bench pressMy first workout ever was with my father’s old gym set in a room in the corner of my house, I never looked at any training videos or even did any research on how to work out I just went with it and slowly learned how to perform each exercise and most importantly when to perform them, when I started out I used to do bench press for as many sets as I could increasing the weight as I went through the work out, I knew I was progressing not because my physique changed for the better but because my strength was increasing a lot so one day out of the blue I decided to join a gym, I did with my dad and he decided that he was going to train me funny enough I still remember the first piece of equipment we approached and that was the famous bench press, let me say I was weak as could be I even remember seeing everyone out of the corner of my eyes laughing at me and to make things worse a few months later when I was still benching the same amount of weight my dad was benching 315lbs easily, I mean my dad has always weight trained but still I surely thought I was going to do pretty well considering I benched pretty well at my house.
As time went by I was still stuck at the same weight for bench press (95 lbs) and wasn’t getting stronger so I decided to look up some tips on the web, I still don’t know why I chose that particular exercise as my marker but I did, anyways, I looked at what my dad was doing and I went into bodybuilding forums (big mistake) I tried tucking in the shoulders, focusing on the negative portion of the rep, getting help from a spotter but it didn’t help at all so one day I was lying in bed thinking and it clicked, I figured out why I was weak and wasn’t progressing, I wasn’t focusing on myself all I was doing is looking at what everyone was doing but I wasn’t paying attention to myself so I decided I was going to change by not caring about anyone else but myself that meant no more caring about who won the Olympia that year or how much could Ronnie Coleman Lift it was all about how much I could lift and what I would look like; that’s why I was getting better each day by training at my house, I didn’t know what bodybuilding was all I knew was that I wanted to bulk up to look better and get stronger.
The following years I trained with my dad not caring what I looked like at that moment because I knew that in the near future I was going to look good and nothing could stop me from achieving it, I still remember the first day when I walked into the gym and how everybody made fun of me now I walk in and look at the few people that still go there just before I’m about to do my sets of bench press for 315 lbs. I still workout at my house, I don’t have a lot of anything and to be honest for a normal gym rat it’s probably nothing but the workouts I have had in that particular room have been the best of my gym life, I can focus on what I want and how to achieve it, the same thing happens I mean I can focus but when I’m at the gym it’s just not the same. When you walk into the gym always focus on what you want and what you are going to do to achieve just that, forget about the douche bags in the corner mocking everyone because in 5 years time you will be twice as muscular as them with a winners attitude, there is nothing better that saying “I told you so”.
One thing that is important with any heavy weightlifting is that you get enough rest and make sure your body is getting all the right nutrients either through food or good sports supplements which will help you continue to see both muscle and strength gains.
