What got you into lifting weights?

[iloverachel]

For me, it was for my mental health, as well as wanting to lose weight and distract myself from stress and worries.
As time went on, and I started getting stronger and leaner, it started becoming more than a hobby, it became a lifestyle.

How about you guys?

 

[Call Me Dave]

Girls

 

[FrancisK]

Wrestling

And pussy

Mainly pussy

But also wrestling

But really....pussy

 

[thethinker48]

In 7th grade they lined up our entire school by size for some stupid activity, I was the smallest and lightest kid in the entire school (including the girls)

4'6, 67 lbs

Just wanted to look normal

 

[GetYucked]

Pics of Shawn and Flex from the 90’s, always wanted to look like that.

Got serious about it in 2013 ish (when I went to the dark side) after following bodybuilding for a few years

thought I was gonna get girls; now I just get compliments from dudes

 

[maldorf]

I was tall and skinny as a kid. By the time I was in 8th grade I was my adult height of 6 foot but only weighed about 125 lbs. I hated being skinny. I saw the movie Conan in the theater when it first came out and decided I wanted to try to look like Arnold as much as I could. I remember reading magazines and seeing the Charles Atlas ad and identifying with the poor guy in it.

 

[hulkboy]

Parents were weightlifters, and I had easy access to a well put together home gym in our garage. Deadlifting was life..

 

[Cv215]

My dad was into bodybuilding and had a pretty awesome home gym. I would go in there and watch him and his friends lift when i was a little kid. He taught me how to bench press with the ez curl bar when i was like 8 years old. Over the next couple years i learned more of the lifts.

I kept lifting because i always liked the idea of being jacked, but mainly because i like the feeling of lifting heavy shit. Pussy was always a very strong driving factor though.

 

[Backfrominjury]

Sports, girls...I started young and liked the attention in both areas.

 

[Swifto]

The Encyclopdia of Modern Bodybuilding.

 

[Samson250]

Arnold.

 

[Luv2test]

I wanted to be like the Terminator, Rambo and Hulk Hogan...and I wanted the pussy as previously mentioned.

 

[aphextwin]

I wanted to look different and got addicted to the results. It obviously helps that the woman noticed too.

 

[TheOtherOne55]

Superheroes and sports.

Loved comics as a kid. And every coach I ever had pushed me into a gym. I just was the only guy who LIKED lifting weights once sports were done.

 

[McSwickles]

Unfortunately as a much younger man I made a few mistakes, which led to my incarceration! I quickly decided I would be leaving prison with the same anal circumference I arrived with lol!

 

[EWRECK]

Football/Females

 

[Dens228]

Football. I was a tiny little fellow as a freshman, under 100 lbs. Graduated at 185, played in college at 205 as a strong safety when most DB's weighed 160 or so. Hooked since about 1976 or so.

 

[danieltx]

I did martial arts as soon as I could as a child and stuck with it through early high school. We didn't get a wrestling team at my high school until my senior year, so there was no natural transition for me to keep going. I really wish there had been because I graduated in 2005, right when UFC's The Ultimate Fighter came out - what could have been. At that point, I was also getting burned out on martial arts - partially due to doing it for so long, but also due to being put in the adult class with fully physically developed men in their 20s and 30s when I was only 13-14-year-old. I was a late bloomer physically and it's really discouraging to go get destroyed a few times a week when you're still just a kid. But it did make me quite tough, gave me the confidence to stand up to and back down some of the kids who thought they were real tough shit at my school, and gave me a reputation as one of the baddest dudes you didn't want to fuck with.

I stopped doing anything athletic by my junior year of high school and that continued through college, where I got fat. I knew things had to change when I developed stretch marks on my abdominals below my belly button. 12 years later they're completely faded, but seeing them fresh was the shock I needed to change.

I can honestly say I got into lifting weights purely for bettering myself. I loved comic books as a kid, have always watched pro wrestling and fighting, so those images of idealized, muscular physiques undoubtedly play some subconscious role. But I really did it just to get myself in shape and have a new outlet where I could always try to do better each day - 1 more rep, 2.5 more lbs., etc.

All these years later, I still really do it just for me. The girls are cool, the comments you get in public are cool, everyone loves having their ego stroked - but take all that away and I'd still train and diet just as hard. Bodybuilding is what I do and a bodybuilder is who I am. It doesn't 100% define me as I have other interests in life, but it's been my primary focus for years and will be for the next 5 or so.

 

[USMuscle9403]

Watching Arnold movies with my dad, Rocky, Rambo, Predator, Blood Sport, you name it...

I was a fat kid but known for being a really strong kid, too. I originally started screwing around a little (making lat pull down in my back yard when I was 12), found out how well I responded, and it just had me hooked ever since.

Nowadays, I'm more disciplined and I think that's what half of this is about. How you do one thing is how you do everything.

 

[Gunsmith]

Jr high football is where it started