I was a fat kid my freshmen year of high school, and I built up some big muscles by senior year. I went from 165 lbs, not being able to do a pull up, to 185 lbs, doing 22 pull ups at a time. I good friends at the time were these two sticks who weighed in at 125 lbs each. I was proud to start showing the lines forming for my six pack, but they convinced me that I was still a blob. With my ego crushed, I quit regularly exercising for about 5 years.

Two years ago, I weighed in at 210 lbs, 5'6" tall, and now I weigh in at 185 lbs. I started going to the gym on a semi-regular basis, and now I have a regular training regiment. Tuesdays and Fridays I walk up and down a large hill backwards for about an hour, and Sundays I walk stairs for about an hour (averaging 300 flights per session). My legs are tree trunks, but my arms are sticks. It also helps that I work stagecrew periodically.

I think if I had to bench press, I could maybe max out at 200 lbs.
I think if I had to leg press, I could do 10 reps of 1000 lbs.
I can't test this because my gym membership expired.

I'm 5'6" and around 130 pounds.


I'm in "good" shape. I run on a regular basis (around 3 miles a run), so say 12 miles a week? I also try to ride my bike when possible. My wife makes only good food (good for the bodies, and about 99 percent of the time good tasting ;), and we usually aren't sitting around the house.


I've kind of got it nice though, as I have a crazy fast metabolism, so I don't have to work so hard to keep in shape.

I have had a fixed working out schedule for a few weeks now - 3 times a week, with different muscle parts being trained each training session (which lasts for about an hour).
I also do some other kinds of working out at times, like training springiness, swimming, biking or running.

I´m usually very active during spring breaks (like now), but this time I´ll try my best to maintain this behaviour even when school starts.. I feel and see the effect already.

As for the food, I try to avoid food which contains bad fat and fast food generally. I only eat candy on very rare occasions, but if I do it sometimes gets out of control :/
So I´ll try to cut that out of my diet completely.. Currently I´m trying to find a way to reduce my bodyfat amount effectively. As for drinking - I only drink water and sometimes tea. I have done this for ages now and it feels just so much better.

Oh and I am of same size and weight like the guy above me. 5'6" and around 130 pounds (sometimes more).

I go outside once in a while. I might take a long walk occasionally. The one time I went and did a workout with weights, it proved to me that if I kept it up, I'd be friggin built in like a week or less. But I just don't have any motivation to go do that.

I think if I ever get around to getting my own place and eating better, I can keep pretty healthy with all the walking I do. Maybe I'll get around to working out again sometime, but for now, I'm one of the laziest people around, although I have no qualms against changing that given the right circumstances.

i just want to tell you guys here that bowflex sucks so bad. i paid $2000 for ultimate 2 and you cant even use a bench press bar. you have to use straps to do bench press that works out your arms and chest very different. also the exercises are not as good as just bar bell and dumbells.

Fuck all of those "machines."

You can do incredible amounts of exercises with simple dumbells and barbells, and they are simply the best workouts because your muscles work towards balancing them in your hand as well as the workout itself. I prefer dumbells because each arm works out itself individually. You have no easy pulley system that aids in your workout, it's simply physics.

How about push ups and sit ups? Are they any effective? I don't think you get as "big" doing them, but for building up stregnth, how are they?

I found people who lift weights tend to get disproportional. Like their arms are huge and stuff, but they have huge beer bellies and chicken legs.

I'm about 5'11" and somewhere between 120 and 130 lbs. Definitely the "lanky" type build. Last time I checked my body fat was like 7%. However no matter how much I eat or what I eat, calories just seem to vanish like I never even ate anything. I think internalizing tons and tons of stress over the years with little release has something to do with it. I think it's true that people react to stress differently...some gain weight and some lose weight.

As for exercise, my campus is pretty damn huge and I don't use a bike, so I walk a LOT on weekdays when school is in. However during the summer exercise is pretty much nonexistent. Mainly because I am lazy, and it's unbearably hot outside and the sweaty, gross feeling you have after doing anything physical in heat and humidity has to be in my top 3 of most unpleasant things in life.

As for food I've had phases of going on a health-nut streak, but my body seems totally frozen in regards to what I put into it. I notice no discernable difference in energy, physicality or general well-being whether I'm eating totally fresh and organic meats/veggies/fruits than packaged/frozen foods from Walmart. So I generally go with the Walmart stuff since it's cheaper :P

Heh, my legs are like massive redwood tree trunks. My stomach is flat, but without prominent abs. I always dedicate two of my three workout days to compound exercises that workout multiple body parts, such as deadlifts, barbell squats, bench press, etc. The other day is for isolation workout on specific parts. I try to do everything, so that nothing becomes much bigger than everything else.

Sit ups, if performed correctly are great exercises for the abs; I think even bodybuilders and huge monsters still have them in their training schedule as there are very few other methods to train the abs (usually just variations of sit ups or crunches done on machines and benches.)

As for push ups, I can recommend them for training the chest and trizeps. I heard they are very effective if you still can´t do 20 real push ups at once.


Uh, I usually associate this with "disco pumpers", ie guys that almost only do bench presses and bizeps training and end up having considerably big arms - to impress chicks in night clubs, of course :D

As for me, I have a whole day just for leg and abdomen training.

What elevator said. Of course, when I used to go to the gym, I laughed at those idiots to myself. Fools.

I remember when I did a good workout on my legs, I had difficulties walking afterwards. And the next day.

I hear you man. My calves always hurt for a few days when my leg-workout day has come (today :)).. but I think it´s very effective and important to train the legs, as they are needed pretty often :D

Like ORLY, I’m an enthusiast in favour of bodyweight.exercises:
-pushups (mix of regular, 1 arm/1 arm-1 leg/clap) (50-100/d)
-single leg squats (2x 5-10)
-pull-ups etc.

All were great in terms of boosting self esteem, confidence and a general flow on effect on concentration. Not brave enough to dry any inverted stuff like handstands just yet.

I’ve recently added russian twists and an assortment of resistance based/gymnastic/balance/yoga style exercises to the daily repertoire. A gymball helps to mix things up, and this general strength training benefits my badminton/squash which I try and get out to 3 times/week. I suppose my aims are primarily functional strength, not just bulking up.

I'd have to say that I like to keep on a good schedule, although sometimes work and tiredness doesn't allow...I go for putting the miles in, I usually get about 20 miles per week running when I'm following the schedule

As for sports, I play baseball just about every day and get a workout running around in the outfield...sitting in a chair at work all day does horrible things...

I'm about 5' 11", 145 lbs, and I usually fluctuate between +or- 5 lbs depending if its winter or summer. If i have someone to run with, the running goes a lot easier

I don't use machines or lots of weights to exercise since I don't want big muscles and such. I just prefer to stay skiny by doing regular daily exercises and since its summer its alot more refreshing going out for jogs.
I seems to be gaining just a little fat though so for me a good diet will always help.