Introduction

I want to start off this blog with a small list of my credentials and my personal experience. I have been a certified personal trainer through ACE certification. I have also taken many nutrition, exercise science and anatomy classes. I have been weight training for 7 years in total and have read countless books, magazines and blogs on nutrition, weight lifting and other types of exercises. I have played mad chemist with my body if you will and have tried a variety of different supplements, work outs and just about everything you could think of. My senior year of high school I weighed about 180 pounds, 12 % body fat and in a four year period I grew to 208 pounds 13% body fat. I have benched pressed over 325 pounds as well as squatted over 500 pounds. I had ambitions of completing in body building.

There are a lot of misconceptions about both bodybuilding and weight lifting. People tend to think of body builders as the traditional muscle head whose arms are 20+ inches and who look like they couldn't itch parts of their backs if their life depended on it. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of body builders out there who fit that description but there are also many body builders who can walk around with a somewhat average looking stature but because of their dieting and exercise have low body fat percentages who also apply as body builders. My perception of body building is that it's an art form, some people may want to get bigger, some may want to get more defined but any way you look at it these people are building their bodies. I think of the human body as a clump of clay that can be molded. I learned from experience with dieting and resistance training I can either gain or lose muscle and strength.

Throughout this blog I would like to give you, the reader, my story of weight lifting and training. I would like to share with you what has worked for me in the past for my different types of goals and what didn't work for me. It is true that everyone reacts differently to training so what has worked for me may not work for you. In the next few weeks I will share with my exact weight lifting routines with my caloric intake. I also have pictures which I will post throughout my blog to give you an idea of what I looked like at these different phases of my routines. I will also touch upon exercises and the correct techniques to use while preforming these exercises. Using the wrong techniques while exercising can cause serious injuries and inhibit gains. My goal is to inform and educate those who exercise how to do so properly and to show that body building is not just for muscular guys but is also for all types of people including females.