Before sophomore year of high school, I never knew that a person could grow their muscles. I often viewed my dad or anyone for that matter, the way they were because.... well because that's how their body grew. Their DNA structure gave them the body they had and there was nothing you could do about it. When i first saw Arnold on the big screen i thought, "How is he so big? He could probably throw a car like the hulk!".

I was given a choice in high school. Either choose gym and run around a field playing sports. Or i could go and join a class called Weightlifting. If there is one thing about me.... It's that i hate playing sports. Weightlifting sounded like the less of two evils. In my eyes anything was better then running around a field "like an idiot".

First day of class comes by and i get dressed in the locker room. We line up in the hall way and wait for the teacher. He explains the rules and what we can and cannot do in the gym. He opens the door and my eyes actually widen. Around me these weird contraptions just rest. Weird ropes on the ground, Pulleys in every which direction, huge circular discs that had numbers on them. I was in a alien world. I had left planet earth and had landed on mars.

The first day i kind of just tinkered with the machines. Examining how they worked... Reading the diagrams intricately.... I became intrigued... Greatly intrigued by this room filled with machines and weights everywhere... I was the very shy type, Never raised my hand, Never spoke loudly, Never picked a fight.... But here i saw teenagers the same age as me pushing as hard as they could. They were pulling with all their might. What was all this monstrous exerting doing to them? Why were they grunting? Why were they leaving the realm of silence.

I had lived in the shadow of everyone else and never once experienced something that i could call my own. I guess it was my fault.... Being the shy type and all. The second day i decided to try these machines out. My work out was none the less extremely erratic, blind and unguided. But for some reason when i awoke the next day, my muscles ached all over. I had over heard some of the guys in my class talking about this soreness. But there was something off about this unfamiliar pain that had overcome my entire body. With every stretch and every move it hurt. But why did i like it? Why did this pain give me a smile on my face?

I had a i guess you can call a bully. He would pick on me for absolutely no reason. This bully was in my weight training class. I saw him pulling and pushing. He was grunting and yelling. He was working out and it was getting me angry. Not because he picked on me. Not because he was yelling nor grunting. I was mad because he was bigger than me. I was mad because, here he was trying to claim this gym as his own. He was trying to claim MY GYM as his own. I had to prove to everyone in my class that this was my gym. As skinny as i was, I was going to be the Alpha Male in this class. I was going to prove i had the bigger drive than him.

Junior year comes around and i am put back into weight training class. And long behold who do i see? My old bully benching. The problem with working out is you never really see how big you are getting. You see your gains in weight but can never tell if you truly are getting bigger. Looking at yourself in the mirror every day seems to skew the results. But he saw it.... His face said everything as i walked in. The face i saw him make told me i had my results. My Drive had outlasted his as his body remained in the same shape as a year ago.

From then on i continued to lift weights but fell back and dropped them. I didn't feel as good about myself nor did i like the image in the mirror. I would work out on and off with my friends but never had the push. I never had the desire to have a even better looking body then junior year or senior year.
That is until my brother looked in a mirror and hated.... No..... Was absolutely disgusted with the way he looked.
He came to me about the gym, eating right and working out.... And because of him... Because of each other, We push each other past the limits of what we thought was not physically possible.

When you go into a gym, People will look at you.... They will judge you before you even set 10 steps into the gym. They will think to themselves "I wonder how long he will last". Some will loath you for joining "their" gym. But claiming that gym for yourself.... That's the best. You can't just walk into a gym and call it your home. You have to earn that right. You have to put all your blood, all your sweat, and all your tears into this so called home to be. When you go into that gym day in and day out, people notice.
They notice not the weight you lift, or the work outs you do But the drive and dedication to your body. I love working out because it inspires people in a lot of ways. Some guy right across from you could be battling for that last rep and want to give up. Then he sees you Pushing with all your might, all your veins trying to rip out from under your skin, All your fight that your giving to just push one more time. And here you are on your last rep not even realizing your push gave that other guy the will to do that one more rep.... Because if you can do it, Why can't he?