I guess I was a jock; technically, but I sure wasnt a douche bag. I played soccer, baseball and I was a swimmer. I was always way stronger and way faster than most of the football players, so the football coaches always wanted me to transition to their sport. The football coaches saw soccer players as “foot fairies”. That was until I busted up 2 DB’s that were firing footballs at us during our shuttle runs for soccer. Those were the days.
Anyways, Im glad to see that there are a lot of converts on this site. Most of my athletic buddies have let it all go to waste. Dudes who are naturally and genetically gifted now look like 40yr old fat dudes and we are still in our Mid 20’s.
[quote]PentagraM wrote:
Anyways, Im glad to see that there are a lot of converts on this site. Most of my athletic buddies have let it all go to waste. Dudes who are naturally and genetically gifted now look like 40yr old fat dudes and we are still in our Mid 20’s.
[/quote]
Given the choice between being in great shape as a teen and being in great shape now, I’ll take the latter.
Even better, I wish I had seen the light at a younger age like you did and kept it going the rest of my life. Kudos to those of you that have done that.
played soccer/baseball/football up until about middle school. then got sucked into gaming (starcraft and diablo I/II) I started goofing around with weights the summer after highschool was over, and have been doing it since then.
I still whip out Diablo I everyonce in a while. I dupe the hell outta everythin from the beginning and beat the entire game in about 1/2 day. Good times…
[quote]HolyMacaroni wrote:
i was a huge doushe in highschool and had problems tieing my shoe and wiping my ass. i also weighed about 155lbs, as well as had a lvl 62 paladin with a three socketed sword with a perfect ruby, diamond, and skull.
thank god i was sent to a private military school, lol.[/quote]
That game stole an entire summer of my life. After that I literally swore off all videogames and haven’t played any since.
I have been practicing martial arts since I was born, had a few brief stints with swimming and tennis until I realized how gay those sports are.
I originally began weight training to improve my martial arts once I started competing, but I didn’t like competition much, and some obligations and responsibilities I would have been forced into by my academy lead to me finally dropping martial arts, and now lifting weights is my only athletic hobby.
I was a mixture of the two you could say… a skinny, geeky little kid that was unusually fit and capable, but wasn’t interested in team sports or athletics elsewhere at all.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
That game stole an entire summer of my life. After that I literally swore off all videogames and haven’t played any since.[/quote]
MMORPGs are evil. I don’t play them any more for that reason. I haven’t managed to kick my Civ addiction, unfortunately.
Been a natural athlete is/was why I haven’t done anything remarkable yet. I’ve played soccer from the age of 5, but always had crazy speed compared to the rest of the team etc. So there was one thing, been entered in local school athletics, which distracted me.
Then playing rugby at school, having never played before, as soon as I got the ball I would run through the whole team and score. Then I got in the rugby team and stopped soccer even though I was a district player just a couple of eyars before. And that swap between soccer and rugby was on and off.
I played a few games for the college rugby team and got a lot of tries and made some great tackles and was told to go for the North east colleges and English college teams.
So along with my bad attitude as a kid, that helped ruin my chances in all sports because I never got totally steady in one sport, and still haven’t.
I should add that I am debating on playing some Semi-Pro Football. It is just soooo damn expensive! But I always regretted bitching out of football in 9th grade when the cardio was too hard for me (I could not do 1 lap around the field).
I played basketball in a league and football as well as rugby for my high school. I was always a fringe starter or the first one off the bench. Athletic enough to make the cut, but not athletic enough to make an impact. After high school I quit all sports and just focused on weight lifting. I’ll still play with basketball, volleyball, or tennis 2-3 times a week for fun though.
I loved gaming when I was in junior high, starcraft and warcraft 2/3 were popular. I’ll play Dota very seldomly if I don’t feel inclined to read/study, generally everyone yells at me and I won’t play for it agian for a while!
Bit of both actually… i have exercised deliberately with bodyweight and athletic/aerobic exercise since around 13-14.
I also began smoking and drinking around then too.
I began training with a bodypart split, and free weights including bench, squat and deadlift (very light obv.) at 18-19.
I also began using hardcore drugs.
I continued on and off throughout the years… having a better body than any untrained person my age, and using it for fighting mostly, but nowhere near making the most of myself - ‘enjoying’ life if you like. More like fucking it up but…
Around 2 years ago i quit smoking, drinking and drugs - i decided to make the most of myself, put all i had to bodybuilding with an aim of competing eventually.
I went from a 10% 170lbs around summer of 2007 to a 12% 210lbs today. I am happier than i have ever been.
Bodybuilding literally saved my life. Or i did through bodybuilding… either way, it saw me good.
My friends all call me a jock. When I was younger, I was a decathalete and a rugger. Sounds impressive? Well, I was a decathalete because I was in the words of my coach “equally mediocre at every event”. I played rugby because I liked drinking and hitting things. Now I lift weights.
I ran cross-country, sprinted and jumped in track, played lacrosse and rowed crew (at different times) throughout high school and college, but I was easily discouraged when others were much better than me and gave up on a lot of these endeavors before really putting in the time to develop enough skill. After college, I dropped all athletics and got fat only to rediscover lifting a few years ago. Now, I look more like an athlete than 90% of my buddies who were big jocks and I couldn’t imagine not hitting the gym 3 or more times a week.
I played baseball from kindergarten until sixth grade, and I was horrible, I was fat slow and uncoordinated. I decided to quit and got progressively fatter until the end of my junior year in high school when I decided to start jogging to lose weight. I started lifting September of 2007, the beginning of my senior year, I progressed in strength relatively quickly and dropped about 40 lbs overall. In september 2008 (Fresman year of college) I began competing in powerlifting. In march I joined the rugby team and was horrible but I am progressing well.
Started out really athletic, competing in almost every sport. Fell in with some nerdy friends, came back around to it once high school started to get girls. My parents were both tremendous athletes, so athletically I was gifted with killer genetics.
Since high school I’ve become more and more serious, playing college football, track, doing MMA, etc.
EDIT - Oh, and I personally subscribe to the Bruce Lee mentality when it comes to bettering yourself physically. His thoughts were that even though one may be technically gifted, not enough are bettering their basic physicality (i.e. strength, endurance, nutrition). It wasn’t until I began to adhere to this that I started to dominate in sports, it aided my natural ability like crazy.
Damn there’s a lot of games/ex-gamers on this site. No video game ever held my attention for more than a month or two straight.
I started playing sports at four years old and competed in five different sports by the end of hs.
I’m thankful for starting young and proud that I never dropped off after hs when everyone says “why work out anymore?”. Also very thankful for older/more experienced guys for their help.
This seems like the ideal sort of thread to break my lurker status and introduce myself.
I’ve always loved playing sports, but unfortunately have also always sucked at them. At school I played football (soccer), rugby and also tried cycling (track and road racing) and had to work my tail off just to be an average competitor in any of those disciplines. Same deal with lifting weights - I’m weak as shit compared to a lot of you guys, but that has never quashed my enthusiasm for getting into the gym and working hard to see slow, consistent progress.