I grew up in an abusive home. Why does that matter? Maybe it doesn't, at least not to you, but it is where my story starts. I loved watching anything with Schwarzenegger in it, because he was the biggest, baddest dude in the movies and nobody messed with him. I thought that if I could be as big as him, then no one would ever hit me again. Then one year, I got a set of weights (the plastic ones with the sand in them), and that was my start. I lifted as much as I could without getting in trouble, which is to say, not nearly as much as I wanted. Fast forward a few years, I learned to put on size, got decently strong, not record setting, but gym-respect strong. Like so many guys that age, I thought I wanted to be a professional bodybuilder. I made a deal with myself. I would take five years to learn how to train/gain properly, then on to the juice. By this time, the gym became my go to place. I could get centered, no matter what was going on. As time went on, I started to see my self-worth, started to face fears, change my faults, met some close friends, found my Savior. I made it natural quite a ways. Unfortunately, I found out, I do not do well being that heavy. Yes, I was strong, and decently sized for natural lifting, but I felt like I was always out of breath. I decided that pro-bodybuilding was not in the cards.
I then turned to other sports to satisfy that drive we all experience. I still loved the gym and lifting, but time to chase another goal. Like a crazy person, I decided I wanted to do freestyle motocross. Lets just say, that was a bad choice. About a year in, I am practicing before work and take a bad hop of the ramp, land wrong (bike on top of me), spend seventy-thousand dollars on my right leg, and spend the next year learning to walk again. It has taken my several more years to get my knee where it is now, but it is better than getting full knee replacement at a young age (orthopedic surgeon suggestion). The great thing about the knee injury is that I learned how good a wife my then girlfriend would be. Before I was released back to work, I had already made up my mind to marry this girl.
Married life, night shift, and several years all add up to weight gain, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, shortness of breath, blood clots. So here I am now, writing this narrative, out of shape, overweight, all the bad stuff we want to avoid, or avoid talking about, but I am still breathing. So now is the time to make a change.

I love this sport. I love it because, it is all up to me. It isn't just pick up a bar, put it down, and repeat. Bodybuilding requires thought as well as dedication. To achieve your absolute best, you have to learn, experiment, review, and repeat. If you break your leg, quit lifting for a few years, get fat, and out of shape, bodybuilding is still there to welcome you back.