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My first contest as a teenager I came in dead last.  I spent over 3 hours a day in the gym training hard with weights and doing aerobics in order to prepare for this contest.  Instead of gaining muscles and appearing solid, I overtrained and depleted my hard earned muscles.  So 3 hours a day, 6 days a week and this is the kind of result I got.  It was very disappointing and discouraging.  Believe me I trained hard and lift the heaviest weights I can.  People from the gym that knew me considered me the hardest trainer they have ever seen. 

Below is the stats.  I went from 154 lbs to 183 lbs in a short amount of time by doing HIT Training:

Date:              11/3/1990                 1/3/1991              4/17/1991

Weight:             154 lbs                   163 lbs                 183 lbs

Neck:                16"                          16 1/2"                 17"

Chest:                42 1/4"                    43 1/4"                 45"    

Upper Arm:       15"                          15 1/2"                  16 3/4"

Lower Arm:       12"                          12 1/2"                  13 1/2" 

Waist:                29"                          30"                         31"

Upper Thigh:     24"                           24 3/4"                   26"

Lower Thigh:     20"                           21 1/2"                   22 1/2"

Calves:              15 1/2"                     16"                         17" 

My Story

(These pics are not exaggerated.  That's really how skinny I was.  I was far from being genetically gifted)

As a child I grew up admiring my comicbook superheros like the Mighty Thor and Hulk. 

So being too skinny with an 11 1/2" arms never appealed to me and I wanted to do something about it.

February 14, 1989, I was 18 years old when I first joined Mt. Olympus Gym in Corona, California. Before that I did most of my weight training at home and in the school gym. Joining the gym was the first time I ever took Bodybuilding very seriously. I was very knowledgeable already on how to do weight training since I have been training consistently since the age of 12. I had numerous Bodybuilding books and magazines to use as my reference.

I followed the training routine described in those books with a fine tooth comb. I was training more than 2 hours a day, six days a week. I made good results and added 15 lbs to my body by the first year. I was happy because my body was hard and define. My shoulder and legs were very noticeable. Since I was so excited I decided to make a goal of competing in my first Bodybuilding contest in November of 1991.  This was for the Natural USA (Teenage Division). I wanted to do this before I turned 20. Since I gained 15 lbs and went from 127 to 143 lbs, I was hoping to be around 160 lbs for the contest. I gave myself 21 months of serious training and dieting.

By the time I reached the middle of the year of 1990, I noticed that my progress had ceased. I was not making anymore gains. The books I read said that I had plateaued (a sticking point where no more gains can be achieved). As recommended by the books, I added more sets and ate more Kcalories. I was training even more in the gym and I notice that in instead of gaining weight by muscles, I was losing it. My body that once looked hard, was now soft. Six weeks before the contest, the owner of the gym, also the promoter, recommended that I do more cardio workout and increase my reps and sets in order to get rip and hard. At this time I wasn't aware that I was overtraining.  None of the books I read ever mentioned it. I never thought back then that such a thing ever existed.  I always thought that the more time you put into training and the harder you work at it the better you are.  I also thought feeling tired and unmotivated in the gym was more of a mental state. When I entered the contest, the hard looking muscles I once had now looked soft. Out of 12 teenagers I competed against, I came in dead last.

I made a vow back then to never come in last at any Bodybuilding contest I entered. I took some time off from training and analyzed my training log to see where I made my mistakes. Fortunately at that time, I bought a used book titled, "Natilus Training" by Dr. Ellington Darden. Dr. Darden was a strong proponent of Natilus training, which was training the whole body 3 times a week. His base knowledge came from a man, Author Jones, who founded Natilus exercise machines and training. This was the first time I came to understand the meaning of overtraining and why my progress came to a halt and why my muscles were diminishing.

Eventhough I took Dr. Darden's training principles to heart, I was not completely sold on Natilus Training. I did not think back then that training only 3 times a week with a duration of 20-30 minutes each session was enough to make any gains. I was still a firm believer in multiple sets and frequent training. But I was convinced though that I needed to cut my training in half. So instead of 6 days a week, I trained 4 days a week. Instead of 20 sets per body part, I did 10 sets. I increased the intensity of my training by doing my reps to failure and applying force reps.

With this training, I was on the road to progress again. I meet my goal of 170 lbs and entered my second contest, Mr. Hercules Natural Bodybuilding Contest and came in 3rd in my division. This time, instead of being dwarfted by my competitors, I was drawfting them. A couple of years later on this training, I was reverting back in my progress and overtraining was setting in.

I cut my training again by another 50%. Instead of 10 sets, I did 5 sets. My progress started returning again. For couple more years I would be training and competing this way. It wasn't until I started hitting a stumbling block and I was overtraining again. Here I am doing a lot less sets than anyone I know and yet I was plateuing. I finally took Dr. Darden's training routine to heart and trained this way for 2 years. I made great progress and broke the 200 lbs barrier that I set for myself.   With this type of training, I didn't have that skinny look anymore. Rather I had a mesomorphic look, the kind of look I always wanted.  But like the rest of the training I've done in the past, I was overtraining again.  For some odd reason, I thought this would never happen again.  I thought that if I followed what Dr. Darden recommended, that it would be the end for overtraining.  I was indeed wrong.