What kept you from being physically fit in your younger years?

[Admin]

It seems like alot of peeps on Ausbb come to exercise later in life – late teens, early 20’s and older. What hurdle stood in your way to starting out earlier? What was it about your school/club/town sports leagues that did not appeal to you?

 

[Shrek]

I was 19. Got a new job and one of the guys there was huge. He talked me into going for a workout.

 

[Admin]

I played aussie rules football upto the age of 16 , , in high school i avoid PE , hated it , mainly because all we played was soccer and twice a year was the fitness test 1.5k run , situps and pushups and the sit and stretch

 

[vonfram88]

I stayed away from all ball sports as a kid as I was unco and got teased for it. So I took up running, weights and martial arts from a very early age, every day. Then I could kick people in the head when they teased me.

 

[Headley]

Ever since i can remember i have always played sports... soccer first as a toddler, then hockey for many years indeed, through to my 20th birthday or so... along with karate, ju jitsu, running, gymming, pushup and situps, endurance runs moving on to surf boat rowing, to say nothing of working on the farm every single day.

Took a big break from everything when i moved to Sydney though

 

[steveP]

I've always been into training since high school, so I was trying, but I didn't see results until my mid 20s.

I all boils down to information. I didn't know what I was doing and didn't know where to look to find the answers. So it ended up being years of trail and error until I saw what worked and what didn't.

 

[El Testicle]

Marijuana cigarettes... and lots of them. (and whatever else I could get my hands on)

Followed by copious amounts of booze.

When I first started 'training' my mates and I would sit outside the gym and down a few beers and Wendys before beginning...

Ah.. those were the days!

 

[Jungnaut]

Never liked sports when I was younger. I'd wag school on sports day or pretend I'm injured so I didn't have to kick a stupid ball around. When I hit 30 though I discovered I wasn't too bad at it and started to enjoy it - squash, tennis, cycling, jogging.. Then I started training with weights and it took quite a while before I figured out how to do the lifts properly (like now).

 

[D1cko]

Booze, long hard days at work 6 days a week.... having kids early...not really even having interest in it.

 

[SydVicious]

Pizza shapes, pepsi and playstation!
Got more into playing AFL, basketball and gym around early 20's... Been more serious about weight training for about 9 months now.

 

[Yoloswagscope]

In primary and up to year 10 in highschool I played a lot of sport, then I played less and less. When I went to university in a different city I no longer was playing sport and I was a pretty skinny kid. I was already doing some weights, and running at least twice a week, but my goals changed, I found new inspirations and some new friends got me into powerlifting.

 

[StrungOut]

I was awesome at Super Mario Bros. Was generally just a fat kid even though I played sports.
Probably started to lose it around 16ish. Around 22ish I think it was, started to pack on the kgs due to being good at being a complete piss head and eating everything in site. Ripped ligaments in my ankle at basketball around 23 and added on even more, got to around 120kgs.

 

[Brick]

As a wee tacker I boxed, did kick boxing, dabbled in martial arts. Was actually pretty handy with the fisticuffs, gave it all up in my teens to chase cheap highs. Got into weights cause there is nothing in the world loathed more then a man approaching middle age a gut and a shit attitude, strangely people love a fit person with a shit attitude.

 

[onslaught]

girls, fighting, drugs and booze.

The rest of my time I wasted.

 

[Rugby88]

To be honest prob myself/food - played rugby from about u11's - was always a big boy - by the time I was u14's I was a good 115kg/120kgs - ate alot - didnt really do any exercise apart from games/training in season and then nothing in the offseason - after u14's after having a taste of rep footy - I though fuck it and started dieting and walking alot (anywhere upto 3 hours a day) - dropped 40kgs in the off-season - I got to the point where I rocked upto my 1st pre-season training and my coaches did not know who I was - still struggle with food/weight but I keep things under control.

So major factors - laziness and I would say pretty much an addiction to food....

 

[kaz]

The school canteen had these awesome chocolate eclairs. The bun was so soft and was so chocolatey. I used to have 2 a day,

Sent from my T-Hub2 using Tapatalk

 

[Fadi]

What kept you from being physically fit in your younger years?

I've never been physically unfit or inactive in sport. Began way back at the age of 7 under the watchful eyes of my cousin, who was the national gymnastic champion back around 1972 (in Lebanon).... then from there to athletics (sprinting) here in Sydney, and then to Olympic weightlifting at 15 ,..and here we are today 42 years later and still at it....



Fadi.

 

[Rugby88]

I've never been physically unfit or inactive in sport. Began way back at the age of 7 under the watchful eyes of my cousin, who was the national gymnastic champion back around 1972 (in Lebanon).... then from there to athletics (sprinting) here in Sydney, and then to Olympic weightlifting at 15 ,..and here we are today 42 years later and still at it....



Fadi.

Hey Fadi do you think that having a gymnastic, and athletics (sprinting) background as a kid built a fantastic foundation to move into Olympic lifting? Due to the natural power you would of built from these activities.

 

[Neddysmith]

Even though I played quite a bit of sport, Aussie Rules during winter, Cricket during summer and golf all year round, I partied hard and my diet was pretty terrible, I relied and got by more on natural talent than my physical prowess, luckily for me at the time it was enough to get by and get the job done in my chosen sports, then as I got older I did want to do better, so started training harder and hitting the gym and looking after my diet more.

The hardest was retraining myself to play football at a lighter body weight, but found I had a heap more run in me and more spring, then I did my ACL twice in 3 yrs and it was all over

 

[Fadi]

Hey Fadi do you thinkthat having a gymnastic, and athletics (sprinting) background as a kid built afantastic foundation to move into Olympic lifting? Due to the natural power youwould of built from these activities.

Hi Rugby88,

Thank you for your question Sir. As you know, our muscles are made up predominantly of two types of muscle fiber: red fiber (type 1 / slow-twitch fibers), and white (type 2) are called fast-twitch fibers. I must have been born with around 80% fast-twitch, white fibers We all have a combination of these two muscle fibers, however with some of us, one of these two types may actually predominate. So I was just lucky that I got myself involved with the right sport for the dominant fiber type I was born with.

The question then arises: can these two fibers be converted? Here's a copy and paste I found applicable for such a question.

"The short answer is no, they cannot. However, you may be able to"train up" the fibers you have of a particular type. For example, if you have 70% slow fibers and 30% fast fibers, there is some evidence that training heavy, at 5-8 RM for example, will theoretically boost the cross-section size of the 30% of type 2B fibers, if not the number. The reverse may also be true. For example, a predominantly fast-twitcher, a sprinter, maybe able to emphasize his slow fibers by running regularly for an hour or more in order to compete in long distance racers, or by doing sets with a high number of reps in the gym. Regular full-body weight training in the range 10-15 reps per set is likely to hit your type 2A intermediate fibers.

In summary, if you're a gym rat, being blessed with white, fast fibers (2B and2A) will probably give you a lifting edge in total weight lifted. If you have slow, type 1 fibers predominantly, you may not win a lifting competition anytime soon, although there is no reason why you should not be able to bulk upsubstantially."

Knowing the above, I can confidently say that when I switched over from Olympic weightlifting to the sport of bodybuilding, and began to incorporate 20, 30,and 50 repetitions within my sets (like squats), I quickly adapted without losing strength. I actually found that having built a 3 1/2 years foundation of mainly low rep training for power and strength (most often hovering around the 2 & 3 reps), I was unknowingly getting my muscles built through Myofibrillar Hypertrophy. Then when I made the switch in sport, and began to increase the repetitions during my sets, I began to achieve Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy. I found that a simple analogy of how these two types of training works is as follows: think of the Myofibrillar as a balloon, a balloon that you are making bigger and bigger. Now think of the Sarcoplasmic part of the muscle cell as the "filling" that is going to go into that balloon. So the bigger the balloon, the more opportunity there is for it to expand and get bigger with that "filling".

Gymnastic served me perfectly because all weightlifters need to have flexibility. The sprinting was just an indication of where this young boy was heading. I was always first out of the box irrespective whether I won the 100m or 200m or not. So the indications were all there for what I found to be a sport that was tailored for me (in the sport of Olympic weightlifting).

Even the difference between my front squat and back squat made me the odd one out amongst my weightlifting peers. The usual percentage difference between the two lifts is around 15%. That is to say, that a lifter with (say) a back squat of 200kg (like I had), should be able to front squat 85% of that number, i.e.170kg. Mine was 97.5% standing at 195kg. Hence I didn't have to back squat.

I better stop here and I'm really sorry if I got carried away with my answer mate.



Fadi.