My Initial Motivation

Growing up, I was never extremely athletic. I was never the fastest, strongest, or tallest, and I don’t think there was a single sport I was exceptionally good at (unless you consider gaming a sport). I remember I was always so dang skinny and had trouble being good at physical feats. I took a weightlifting class when I was 15 in high school, and while that got me interested, it really didn’t motivate me to make it a part of my lifestyle (go figure, I was 15). I didn’t really have much confidence at this stage in my life, I dealt with your typical bullies, and the “friends” that were around me at the time weren’t really my friends. Instead of building me up, they would find any opportunity to bring me down, and I lived with this for a few years, not wise enough to move on from that friend group. Fortunately, as I got older, things changed (I attribute that to good parenting, since my parents have never left my side no matter what).

When I hit college, my confidence started to grow, and I also started to go after what I wanted. We all know what it feels like to go to the beach and see a fit man or woman, and think, “I want to look like that!”. Your mileage may vary, but for me, that was Marky Mark:

I remember thinking — I want to look like that. No matter what, I was going to dedicate myself to looking like that. And, below is what I started with (a far cry from Marky Mark):

I was roughly 5’7, 100 lbs in this picture. We all have to start somewhere!

So, I started going to the gym. I remember the first day I went to the campus gym, I want to the farthest bench press from everyone in the room, and had so much anxiety just walking up to it. “What am I doing here?” “How am I going to do this?” “I feel out of place here.” These were all thoughts that crossed my mind, but like I said, I developed enough confidence at this point to just move forward, despite the thoughts holding me back.

I first started with the typical bodybuilding routine (chest one day, back the next day, etc). This worked for me in the sense that it forced me to go consistently. Then, I started to mix it up with a form of push/pull, and I started to get more into pull-ups. There was just something about being able to lug my own weight around that made me feel incredibly strong and powerful. Around this same time, I really started to eat everything in sight. I started to get stronger, but I did not necessarily reach my goal physique. Below is what I looked like around my heaviest weight of 190 lbs (college house bathroom, for the record):

I carried it decently well, but it was never my goal physique. I still could bust out more than 10 pull-ups, but I never really felt like I was at my peak level of fitness. Then, in 2013, I was diagnosed with a pilonidal cyst. I had surgery, and decided it was time to get serious, and really dial-into my workouts. I had two goals. First, I wanted to look like Marky-Mark (again! Talk about failing! — I wasn’t anywhere close to my original goal after 3 years). Second, I wanted to be the best in the gym at pull-ups. I wanted to be able to bust out thirty in a row. There was no settling at this point in my life.

So, that’s when I started to superset pull-ups in between each lift I was doing, whether it was legs, back, chest, or arms. I also really honed in on my diet. I finally understood the concept of calories in vs. calories out. I knew enough about working out to pick the exercises that I enjoyed and would hit the necessary body parts. By the end of it, I leaned out to 130 lbs:

Now at this point, I decided I never wanted to be 190 lbs at 5’7. I just didn’t like the look on me; instead, I wanted to continue to be lean and just slowly gain muscle, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing the last few years. The same type of workouts, the same type of diet, and the same incorporation of pull-ups. The pic below is when I was 145 lbs:

It was around this time that I discovered something else about myself and working out. I’ve had a few folks here and there approach me in the gym and ask for advice about diet, how to do more pull-ups, and general workout advice. The opportunity to help others in this department brought me more happiness and joy than working out ever did in the first place. I also posted on Reddit a while back and received quite bit of positive feedback and a lot of questions. So, instead of waiting for others to approach me, I decided, again, to go after what I wanted, and that is to start a blog to hopefully attract others to dive into the world of fitness, and be the strongest genetic version of themselves that they can be. Working out has done wonders for me, and I know how much misinformation there is out there, or how intimidating it can be, so hopefully you’ll find these blog posts clear, concise, and very helpful on your own journeys to be fit. Also, I hope you can relate to it, because I was never an athlete, and I was never the strongest, fittest, or fastest guy. Now, I’m just a kid from Denver who likes to stay fit and help others. I’ll post once a week, but I will be more than happy to take any questions via email. Thanks for reading.

Shane

Link to first reddit post in September 2017:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/72n1yj/57_145_lbs_progress_pics_journey_info/