Inspirational Story

[massmatters]

If you guys have spare 10min, here's a good read:
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The Road Less Traveled

by Trevor Smith

Mr. America’s Gym 1986

The year is 1986. The month is June, June 24th to be exact…my birthday. After a couple of years of walking 2 miles to a bus station to take a 35 minute ride to a racquetball club that has a weight room, I had finally proved that I was serious about lifting to my father, who had agreed to buy me a membership at the local bodybuilding gym in my town.

Now this wasn’t just any gym mind you, it was the famed Mr. America’s gym in Farmingdale, NY. That’s right, the very gym owned by Mr. America and lunatic trainer Steve Michalik. The very gym that John DeFendis spoke about each month in his Intensity or Insanity articles in the now defunct Peak Training Journal. This was the big time as far as I was concerned. A real ****ing dungeon with a reputation that was just as bad. I had to prove to my father that I was going to be serious enough to warrant entering such an insane asylum, hence my two years of time spent at the pansy racquetball facility across from the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, NY.
Mr. America’s had the reputation of being without question the most hard-core bodybuilding gym on the planet. Inside, the walls and equipment (which was all hand made) were painted black to keep with the hard-core, dungeon motif. The rules were simple: Train Hard, or don’t train at all. Michalik cared little about earning any money with his gym and certainly didn’t give a rat’s ass about appealing to the fitness craze of the 1980’s. If anything, he tried to dissuade people from joining. Now my father was/is an imposing man of few words. The fact that he was a police chief made sure that I was always a bit on guard and nervous in his presence. When we walked through the fogged up double doors, the acrid smell of sweat poured over you like a breeze blowing over a landfill. Pure nastiness, and I immediately new I was home.
Now at this point, I knew little of steroids, as did most people. The only thing I knew is that they were bad for you and that I would never, ever use them, so when we reached the front counter to speak to the manager about a membership, both myself and my father were a bit freaked out by the fact that the sign in pen was a 3cc syringe with a ball point pen shoved in it. I also remember being perplexed at the dozens of milky white vials (which I now realize was gold old Winstrol) that lined the back of the small refrigerator that was used to keep the sports drinks cold……"I’ll take a cold Gatorade and 2 vials of winstrol please"….sounds ****ed I know, but it is the total truth.
Now my Dad could give a **** about embarrassing me, so the first thing he did was tell the guy at the counter that he did not want his son exposed to Steroids...as he called them. The second thing he did was lean over the counter and ask this monster who was sitting down (well to me he looked like a monster, in actuality, I **** bigger than that guy now and he was a total dick-head) whether or not this gym would be a good place for his son to work out in. I cringed knowing that my dad would never see any of these jerk-offs again, while I would have to walk by them every damn day.
It was right around that time that my Dad turned to me and asked "Now are you sure you are going to use this membership?" I nodded my head as I was still speechless from embarrassment and he plopped down the 225 dollar membership fee. I was then given an appointment to be taken through a workout. At this point I was all excited figuring I would be trained by the legendary Steve Michalik. The king of lunatic bodybuilders! However, that feeling soon faded when I realized I was given an appointment with his brother Pauly. Now you have to understand that Pauly was the complete polar opposite of Steve. A complete geek who soaking wet weighed 135 pounds. My father, deciding I had not been embarrassed enough looks at Pauly and says. You don’t work out, how the hell are you going to show my son what to do…he’s already bigger than you! Looking back on it, it is funny as hell, but at the time, I figured he just signed my death warrant especially when a visible annoyed Pauly looked at my father and said "Believe it or not sir I have been working out for 10 years" as he then washed down his cheeseburger with his 2 liter bottle of cherry Pepsi cola.
If memory serves me correctly, my appointment with Pauly was set for the following Tuesday, and since we were all paid up, I had nothing left to do except go home and wait for my "brutal" session that no-doubt awaited me…(I am being sarcastic in case you cannot tell) So Tuesday comes and I drive my Redline BMX bicycle up to the gym (also about 30 minutes from my house) in eager anticipation of doing some "serious" training. Pauly, about as excited as a blind man at a laser light show, greets me at the front desk and asks if I am ready. I thought I was, but clearly I was not. What followed over the next two hours was the biggest waste of my time I had ever spent in a gym. This guy didn’t know jack about **** and constructed a routine that didn’t even include training calves. When I asked him about this he stated. That will come later when you get more advanced. It was at this point that I knew I was on my own, so I finished up my "session" with Pauly and went home knowing I would have to learn things on my own.
Turns out the only thing I really did know was that I could focus and push myself harder than anyone else in that place—except maybe for Steve Michalik, but at that point it was a rarity to actually see him train as his time was over. I was actually doing more harm then good. I would watch what the other big intimidating guys were doing and would simply copy it for no reason whatsoever. Train long and Train hard…that was the motto of the day. And for the next 18 months that is exactly what I did and I grew very little because of it. I would train until I was sick…go into the back room, puke up in the toilet—all the while noticing the plethora of syringes in the waste basket—then go back out and finish my workout. Then I would go home, and lay down without eating because I had gone way the **** over-board. Not exactly the smartest thing in the world to do, but hey there really wasn’t all that much information out there, and there certainly weren’t any 300 pound monsters walking around. Back then if you were 260lbs you were a freak of nature and there were only a handful of guys in the country that were that size—except powerlifters of course.
Next time we will continue with my training days at Mr. America’s and how a tragic event in my life resulted in a 30 pound weight gain in less than 2 months! Drug free of course!

[massmatters]

Let’s see where were we? Ah yes, Mr. America’s gym circa 1986. During my 18 months of less than fruitful training, I was always amused by the fact that most of the "Big Boys" in the gym at that time were some of the biggest losers I had ever come across. Guys that I had thought were big in part because I was a young kid and in part because their egos were ****ing enormous, were, in retrospect, ****ing jokes. Years later I would run into some of them and while they stayed the same, I obviously did not and it kind of reminded me of the first time I went back to my elementary school as an adult. Just as I could not get over how small in stature some of my teachers were and how small the desks and tables were (because I remembered them as being GIANTS), I could not get over that I was actually impressed with the guys that were in the gym during my early days at Mr. America’s. But that is neither here nor there. The whole point I am trying to make is that during that 18 month span, nobody and I mean nobody was there to help me. There were plenty of delusional egos, but that was about it. I remember going up to the counter and asking this jerk off by the name of Kenny (who was 3-4 years older than me, and juiced to the ****ing gills) if he had any suggestions for me to put on some size. Without so much as looking up at me he pointed to the cabinet that contained some MLO Milk and Egg protein powder and that was the extent of his interaction with me.
I, of course, checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain. Funny thing is, about a year or so after that event, this tool shed came up to me to congratulate me on putting on the size that I did. I again checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain because it showed me the type of person he was. I was not worth his efforts when I was a 185-pound kid looking for advice…..but when I was 235lbs. and the same size as him, I warranted the respect of him saying something to me. It was events like those that made me realize if I ever had the opportunity to help someone who was just starting out, achieve their goals a little faster, I would. I knew what it was like to have nobody to turn to and nobody willing to give me advice. I guess it was a good thing because it made me rather self-reliant and introspective. **** THEM ALL became my motto. I was going to do it by myself and more importantly I was going to do it harder and better and all without succumbing to the temptation of taking the easy path that this Kenny and the others took by hopping on the sauce at an age when their body was producing more than enough testosterone on it’s own. No sir, I was going to do something that nobody ever took the time to do, I was going to maximize my natural potential before ever even considering playing around with gear.
Thus, began my quest. It was 1987 at this point, my senior year of high school. At the start of football season I weighed in at 196lbs. at a height of 6’1" and I was 17 years old. I was still over training and more importantly under eating. During this time I was consumed with getting a football scholarship, yet all the while I dreamed about being able to pursue bodybuilding on a full time basis. As anyone who plays football knows, you only get about 6 months out of each year to devote to serious training and that is assuming you don’t get any injuries. So even back then I knew where my heart lay. But, I was stupidly playing to the wishes of other people and succumbing to the pressure. Football was a good thing, an honorable thing, something you could be proud of in the world I lived in. Where as bodybuilding was looked at as a joke and just for guys that "took lots of steroids". This always bothered me, but hey I was a young kid and it would only be a few more years before I broke free of other peoples desires and spent time doing what I wanted to do and loved.
Got sidetracked a little bit there. O.K., so it is the late fall of 1987 and football season is coming to a close and wrestling season is about to begin. My buddy Mike was projected to win the state championships that year in the heavyweight division and needed someone strong to work out with. I always wanted to go out for wrestling and figured why not give it a try. Turns out it was something I wished I would have started sooner because I was a bit of a natural at the whole grappling game. However that is another story, the point I am making here is that I was immersed in another full time exhaustive sport for 3 months that was not conducive to the bodybuilding life-style. I still wasn’t eating anywhere near much as what I needed to be eating and still over-training to a great extent.
As the wrestling season started to come to a close in the early winter of 1988, my family was faced with a great tragedy. Five years earlier, my Aunt Kathy, who was full of zest and full of life and always one my favorite people, aside from being my mom’s best friend and sister, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After 3 years of intensive ChemoTherapy, she had gone into remission, at least so we thought. It basically came out after she died that she was given only a couple of more years to live back in 1986 when she said her cancer was gone and this brought us to January 1988.
Everything seemed to be fine with my Aunt and then all of a sudden she was in dire straits. Of course I now realize that the "all of a sudden" was merely her being strong and not showing the pain she had been in on a constant basis for the past year or so. All along she knew what nobody else knew, that she was dying.
I remember being awoken one night at about 11:00pm and told by my father and brother that we were going to have to go up to my Grandmothers house (where my Aunt Kathy had been moved to when her condition worsened) to join the rest of our extended family in saying goodbye to her. The truth was cold and emotionless, I was going to have to go and say goodbye to a woman that I had known and loved all my life. I was going to have to watch as her once strong body and spirit (now an 80lb. shell of itself) slowly and painfully drifted into deaths cold hands, never to utter another kind word of support to me and never again to come to my defence when my mother and father were being a bit to heavy handed in their disciplinary beliefs with me.
She was the one relative of mine that always believed in what I was doing and thought my love of bodybuilding was the greatest thing in the world even when everyone else though it was nothing more than an adolescent pipe dream.
I can recall how I went up to the couch that she lay dying on and leaned over to give her a final kiss and say goodbye. I tried to be strong and talk about my future plans, but it was of no use. She was too weak to lift her head up and too weak to put her arms around me. I lost it. I have little problem with the entire issue of death, but to watch someone who was so strong be stripped of all that they were and lay in an almost skeletonized state before my very eyes with each gasping breath bringing them one step closer to death was very hard for me to take. I wanted to take away her pain, but I knew I couldn’t. My mother stayed by her side and she died several hours later. I never cried for her again, for I knew her suffering was over. Even at her wake and funeral when people were in such drastic states of hysteria and pain, I was emotionless. I knew she was in a better place and I knew her suffering was over. I was not going to cry for my loss or for anyone elses loss because that would be selfish. She went through hell and back again and I was glad her journey of torture was over. However, the one thing that I did do, was promise myself that I would make her proud. It became almost an obsession. I was not going to let her down and I was going to prove to everyone that her unwavering belief in my love for bodybuilding was not for nothing!
I can remember sitting in the funeral home with my freshly purchased copy of Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. All my other relatives thought is was disrespectful and tasteless, but I knew it was what my Aunt would have wanted; for me to use her death as a pillar on which to devote myself to my dream. From that day forward that book had become my bible. I read every page over and over again. More importantly I payed strict attention to the section on diet and gaining weight and it was that day in the funeral home that I made a promise to both my deceased Aunt and myself that I was going to get super focused with my diet and training. The first step in that focus was to put on some much needed weight and to do that I had to start getting structured and to start eating. When I had first started lifting weights, one of the police officers that worked under my father had given him a bunch of old Flex magazines to give to me. I was mesmorized by them, and in particular one issue.
There was a small article in this particluar issue on an up and coming teen sensation named Shane DiMora. Some of you may recall Shane as I believe he was the youngest man ever to turn pro at the age of 19. But this article was written a few years before he turned pro. I think he was 16 at the time it was written and I remember seeing his picture standing next to Cory Everson and I was shocked. At age 16 he was 202lbs. (he was only 5’3") and his thickness was astounding. That image always stuck in my mind, so when I made the pact with myself to get serious and start putting on size, I dug up that old picture of Shane Dimora and cut it out. I pasted it to my wall. I decided I was going to be proportionally as big or bigger than that little freak Shane DiMora and that meant I needed to reach a weight of 230lbs. since I was 6’1".

[massmatters]

I marked off on the calander when I would accomplish this by. It was the beginning of February, one week after my Aunt Kathy’s death and I was giving myself until June 15th of 1988 to achieve my goal. I was 194lbs. (two pounds lighter than when I started my senior year of High School) and had just 4 months to put on a solid 36lbs. For the first time in my life everything was crystal clear. I had a clear purpose, a path that I needed to adhere to and one that I would travel all alone, and that is what I liked about it the most.
Next time we will pick up where I left off and discuss what it was that I did during that 4 months, the things I encountered along the way and whether or not I was able to achieve my goal.
So I made my pact and now I had four months to get the job down. Little did I know it would be a lot easier than I thought! You have to understand that at this point in my life, I was still under the delusion that one could achieve the kind of physiques that you saw in the bodybuilding magazines without steroids. Hard work was all I thought I needed. The mountain of mis-information that was around about steroids was enough to fill the ****ing Grand Canyon. So things like: "steroids really don’t work, they’re just dangerous and will get you sick" and "all steroids do is help you achieve the physique at a faster rate"…so on and so forth. I didn’t know any better. I knew steroids worked, and knew they worked big time just from watching the guys in the gym, but I honestly thought you didn’t need them. Turns out I was both right and wrong, but my blind faith was a massive blessing because I never had the least bit of doubt on what I could achieve without the use of drugs. I pulled out the training routine that was briefly outlined in Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and put it together with the one I had been following. Basically that meant scaling back the number of sets I was doing and therefor getting more rest. I began my new routine, but more importantly I began my new focus and new eating pattern. I became religious in achieving my goal. This meant continual feeding, and for the first time in my life I actually did so. Young kids are funny. They think they are eating a lot if they eat a lot at one sitting. They don’t factor into account that they don’t have another crumb of food for 4 hours, but they think because they ate 6 slices of pizza that they eat a lot. Then they wonder: "How come I can’t gain any weight?" My answer is always the same: "You may think your eating a lot, but you are not! A starving dog could probably eat half of a ****ing dead cow in one sitting, but that don’t mean it’s gonna gain a massive amount of weight from that one meal!" And that is what has to be done, continual gorging! Stretching the stomach wall by stuffing yourself with so much food that you feel sick. After a few weeks of this, you will be able to utilize more and more food, will have a bigger and bigger capacity to eat and therefor be able to take in a greater amount of calories and nutrition. Now at age 17, my metabolism was a ****ing blast furnace, as it is for all kids at this age who are not obese and who are very active. My concern, was simply to get in a high amount of nutrients and more importantly calories. 6000 calories per day to be exact, and that is what I did every day for the 4 months. Because my metabolism was so high, there was no concern for counting fat content in my diet (although I was not cramming donuts and cookies down my throat). My calories came from lots of red meat and lots of dairy products and lots of fruit juice. Typically I would wake in the morning and eat 6 whole eggs with a buttered bagel along with 2 glasses of whole milk. Then I would go off to school. My schedule in my senior year of high school permitted me to go home again at around 10:30am because I had a free period. So, everyday, I would come home for 40 minutes and consume 4 glasses of whole milk and a bagel with 6 slices of american cheese and a healthy smearing of cream cheese. Back to school I went and would eat again around 12:30 in the cafeteria with my buddy. I would get a double lunch of either pizza or hamburgers with 4 glasses of whole milk. Then I would go home after my classes were done, which was around 1:30, and I would have a half pound of ground beef along with a few glasses of apple juice or fruit punch or iced tea. After I digested and relaxed a bit, I would go to the gym and train. Just the basics: Incline presses, flat dumbbell presses, standing military presses, curls, squats, leg presses, hack squats, calf raises, tricep extensions, etc. I went as heavy as I could and kept the reps in the 6-8 range. Within a few weeks, **** started changing. I remember going to my family doctor for a check up and when I got on the scale—which was the first time I was on a scale since February, I was 214lbs! I had gained 20lbs. in four weeks and I didn’t even realize I did. This did nothing but fuel my motivation even further. Now I was pumped. My bodyfat was staying the same, but I was just filling out, literally exploding! My XL T-shirts which fit comfortably and roomy were now getting tighter and tighter. Another month went by and I was up another 10 pounds. At this point, I started to feel the ramifications of achieving your goals: Jealousy! I began to hear whispers of "He uses steroids, there is no way he could get that big that fast!" or "He’s on something, I know it for sure!" I was amazed and hurt at the same time. It really bothered me that people thought I was using gear. I was dead set against using steroids at the time and here I was busting my ass, training and eating like a man possessed, and people were ****ting on it and trying to take my achievements away by crediting steroid use. Around the middle of May, I was 230lbs. and now everywhere I went I would hear the rumors about how much steroids I took. It really made me angry and sick. I guess I should have taken it as a compliment, but I did not. What really started to bother me was when I was in one of my classes and the teacher said in front of the whole class "stop popping those pills Trevor". I was totally ****ing shocked. I asked him to repeat himself and he did, but he tried to make it like he was joking with me, but the damage was already done. Now I had another 30 people who were convinced I was a "Roid Head" as they so aptly put it. I would hear stories about people telling other people that they saw me go into the locker room at Mr. America’s and get "shot up" by the owner, or that they saw me buying steroids from one of the guys in the gym. Complete and total fabrications every ****ing one of those stories, and I was just amazed that people would have so little going on in their lives that they would completely make up a total lie to try and tarnish my achievements. To this very day, if you spoke with people who were in my graduating class you would have a great number of them tell you that I used steroids way back then and they would "Know it for a fact!" As much as this bothered the **** out of me, it was nothing compared to what I felt when I found out my really close friends were telling people that "I had to be using something." That really hurt. These were people who witnessed day in and day out what I was doing and putting myself through yet they not only believed the rumors other people were spreading about me, they were confirming them to these ****ing idiots! Of course, they denied saying anything, but I found out from people I knew and trusted and who were older, that they did, in fact, say those things. I guess that is the price one has to pay for any type of success. There will always be someone there waiting to kick you down. It is a rare person that chooses to build themselves up so they achieve more, most people spend their lives tearing others down so they can appear to be higher up. In any event, it was now June 15th. I had already achieved my goal, so stepping on the scale was only a formality, but it was a fun one. When I got on the scale, it read 237lbs.! I had gained nearly 45lbs. in four months. Regardless of what others were saying I was very happy with what I achieved. And like a true bodybuilder all I wanted to do, was see the scale jump even higher. !

[massmatters]

Now as I look back, the reason why I was able to gain so much size and weight in such a short time without any drugs was simple: For two years I was over-training and under-eating, and once I started feeding my system , getting adequate calories to grow and getting adequate rest, I rebounded like a bodybuilder after a competition. The size I gained was size that I would have had spread out over the past year and a half had I eaten sufficient nutrients and calories. Interestingly enough, my "friend" who I found out was telling everyone that I was using steroids, tried to convince me that it would me smarter to go into college football camp not weighing more than 230lbs. His exact words were: "Trevor, 230lbs. is more than enough for you to weigh as a freshman college football player." I immediately told him "Yeah, but 240lbs. would be even better!" Of course, at the same time he was asking me for all my "secrets" so that he could put on size. That kind of put a kink in our friendship for a good 4 years. We were still friendly, but not the same. Eventually though, after we graduated college and were both a lot more mature, we got close again. After I reached my goal, I began to realize that I could excel in bodybuilding or anything for that matter if I just focused. Nothing was going to stop me. Before that point I thought 250lbs. was the heaviest weight in the world and certainly never envisioned myself at that weight. Now I had my mind set on just growing, growing and growing. I had no idea where the train was going, and I did not care, I was loving the **** out of the ride. One month later I flew down to the University of Central Florida, to fulfill everyone else's expectation of playing college football. Even so, I was already obsessed with bodybuilding and spent every free moment reading everything I could on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before I pursued it full time, but that is another story for another time. If you take away anything from this article I hope that it is above all else, human will is the most powerful tool at your finger tips. Steroids work yes, as does proper nutrition, training and rest, but without the will to walk the path—and it can be a very solitary and lonely path—all the drugs, training and food in the world won’t do a damn thing to get you where you want to go. Stay Focused

[muscle-TEK]

a truly amazing story , i feel like going to hit the gym after reading that. thanks

[whiteshadow]

great story .. thanx for posting

[massmatters]

I'm glad you guys liked it. Here another good one by Trevor.

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Four Demons

By Trevor Smith

Here is something that I learned in my years of Martial Arts training. It is an interesting little Zen story that applies to everyone, and to everything when pursuing a goal.

Training is not something that should be taken lightly. Each moment in the gym is a gift from the heavens that allows you to focus on yourself and supply yourself with much needed introspection. It is akin to meditation. During your workout, the outside world should not exist. Your concentration should be at peak levels. Mentally, physically and spiritually connecting to every fiber in your body and harnessing all your energy for the task at hand.

Sadly, so few take this opportunity. Yes, they may go into the gym, but for a staggering number of would be bodybuilders, the gym is a place to garner accolades and attention from everyone around them. They walk into the gym in matching outfits, carefully put together so that they are noticed. They stop and talk to 5 or 6 people before they even pass the front counter of the gym, and when on the floor, they talk to another 5 or 6 more. Their focus is split into 80 different directions. For them the gym is a place to impress those smaller or weaker than them, to get people to notice their arms or their legs, or to get people to notice how much weight they can bench. Every girl who walks by in a revealing outfit is approached by these guys, for the gym is more of a social club than a place of sanctity.

When I see these people I laugh to myself. Fools often have no idea what it is they are missing and it is quite entertaining to watch them in action. To me, the gym is no different that the Dojo and there is certainly no bull**** going on in any Dojo that I have trained or taught in.

Beneath all suffering lies the beauty of opportunity….. That saying came to me after a grueling training session in Jiu-Jutsu and as everyone else was heading home to rest their battered bodies, I was faced with the un-welcomed task of heading to the gym for my scheduled workout. I thought to myself what the Zen masters always knew…..that no matter how harsh the situation there is something to be gained..something wonderful….hence I wrote "Beneath All Suffering Lies The Beauty Of Opportunity" and I headed for the gym to complete my workout.

When I am in the gym, I talk with no one, pay attention to no one and basically shut out everyone around me. People do not approach me as they ass-u-me (which makes an ass out of you and me) that I am an ******* or that I am mean. While this never boded well when I was single, it did not matter to me (Truth be known this does not bode well for being married either as I often do not notice, pay attention to and ignore my own wife who, after countless explanations, finally understands that it is not personal). The gym was not a place for me to score dates…..all that existed was myself and the weights. The rest of the world did not exist until my workout was over. I can honestly say that I never saw anyone in the gym that trained nearly as hard as myself which is the reason I was able to get over 300lbs before ever taking a drop of gear. It is very difficult to keep up this level of focus and intensity and sometimes I almost wished I were able to take the approach of others who went to the gym to "play". They seemed so relaxed—as well they should because they trained like pussies---as I would get nervous, anxious and scared before my workouts as I knew the pain and "suffering " would not be pleasant. For those of you who train like this and wish to train like this you no-doubt have experienced times when you just wanted to stop doing it and it is for you that this article is catered to. For those who use the gym as their social life go surround yourself with little boys as the following is intended for men.

[massmatters]

In the quest of any goal you without question will be confronted by the 4-demons. In fact, they will be in your face daily. The first step in defeating these demons is to know they exist and to recognize them when they come.

The first Demon that one typically meets along their path is the DEMON OF TIRED. The DEMON of tired is most apt to strike when other events during your day have caused you stress or you are pre-occupied with something else. Sitting on your shoulder he quietly whispers to you that you’ve had a long day and it’s ok not to train balls out or better yet not to train at all. I am amazed at the number of people that succumb to this DEMON and justify their actions by stating "I don’t want to overtrain". Understanding that the body is capable of dealing with massive amounts of physical stress helps you differentiate from being actually burned out a bit and overtrained and under-rested as opposed to looking for an excuse to be lazy.

The Second DEMON that you are destined to meet is the DEMON OF PAIN. This DEMON manifests itself right towards the end of a set. Of course he always appears during your perceived moment of failure rather than your actual moment of failure. We’ve all seen this demon at work in the gym. You watch somebody doing a set of bench presses and they just "STOP" for no apparent reason other than the fact that the set started to become uncomfortable. "Fatigue makes cowards of us all"….this has been proven by Pavlov and a whole slew of scientists. However, where the DEMON OF PAIN is concerned, with a lot of people "The thought of fatigue makes cowards of many" Actually taking a set to true failure is a foreign idea to most because it is HIGHLY PAINFUL and UNCOMFORTABLE. They have already surrendered to the DEMON OF TIRED before hand. "Bending over" if you will, before even trying to fight back. Most people who do this also seem to confuse the idea of being injured with the idea of being in pain. They are not one and the same. If one is injured, they often experience pain, however if one is experiencing pain this does not necessarily mean they are injured. The DEMON OF PAIN blurs the line between injury and pain so that you can rid yourself of any guilt for training like a pussy.

The third DEMON is the DEMON OF CONCENTRATION. There is a famous story of a martial arts instructor and one of his students that I would like to share because it applies equally to bodybuilding. A martial arts instructor welcomes a new student into his dojo. This student was very excited and very eager to learn, so after the first class he approached the instructor and said "Sensei, how long will it take for me to be your top student?" To this the Master replied "10 years!". Disappointed, the student then asked: "What if I train every day and never miss a class?" To this the Master replied "15 years!". Further let down, the student quickly responded: "Well what if I train twice day for 8 hours a day and never miss a class?" To this the Master replied: "20 years"….Finally the student asked: "Sensei, I do not understand. Why is it that every time I tell you I will train longer and harder, the longer it will take me to be the best student?" To this the master quietly responded: "With only one eye on the path and one eye on your goal of being my best student, you will never find your way." In simple terms, this means that you cannot partially concentrate on what you are doing in any given moment and expect to get to your maximum potential. In the gym, the only thing that matters is the workout at hand and in particular, the exercise you are currently doing. The DEMON OF CONCENTRATION has his way when you are distracted by what someone else is lifting, what someone else is wearing, what someone else is saying of what someone else looks like. I fully appreciate that for men in particular, the advent of thongs and lycra spandex can make battling this DEMON difficult, but knowing the ways in which he operates goes a long way to defeating him. If you feel your concentration lapse, quickly pull yourself back to the task at hand. In the long run you will understand that there is a time and place for everything and you cannot have it all at once if you expect to excel in anything

The final DEMON is the most powerful and most difficult. It is the DEMON OF CONTINUE. Day in and day out you will be faced with the afore mentioned 3 demons only to realize that you have to get up and face them all over again. This realization is the DEMON OF CONTINUE. Here is where the "I’ll train tomorrow’s" and the "I’ll eat good tomorrow’s" start playing in your mind. Anyone can stay structured and focused for one month, even three months or six months. But can you stay focused and on your path and face the DEMONS everyday for the REST OF YOUR LIFE? That is the question. This is where you can gain ground on those that are seemingly so far ahead of you now. They won’t be able to beat the DEMON OF CONTINUE. But trust me if you do, you will surpass them very quickly. A few years ago people would have laughed at the idea of Ronnie Coleman being Mr. Olympia…..now it appears as if nobody will beat this guy and he will be the best Mr. Olympia of all time in terms of his physique. The same can be said about Nasser. He competed in 30 pro shows before his constant battling of the DEMON OF CONTINUE paid off in one of the most massive physiques to ever step on a pro stage.

In short, understand that you are given an opportunity that many people will never have when you step into the gym. There will be a lot of factors playing against you, many distractions. It is all in your hands whether or not you make the most of your time and subsequently your physique or if you wind up another could have been with your destiny in the hands of one or all of THE FOUR DEMONS.

[NewBi]

So dude whens your book gonna hit the shelves?
Great story.

[Goon]

Go to Nuclear Nutritions website www.nuclearnutrition.com and go thru the archives.

[Joaorv]

Good stories funny his birthday is the same as mine!

[bluehazard]

Great posts! Got anymore?

[massmatters]

you can find more of these articles here:

http://www.nuclearnutrition.com/archives2000.html
http://www.nuclearnutrition.com/archives2001.html
http://www.nuclearnutrition.com/archives2002.html