I’ve always been a nerd and I will always be a nerd. And growing up a nerd up did not in any way prepare me for my fitness journey. Turns out that you can have muscles even if you don’t start in grade school with the jocks.
Imagine the most quintessential high school nerd stereotype: non-athletic, a loner, avoids all sports, and reads all the time. The only thing I was missing was the taped glasses. In my high school and junior high you had to either be in athletics and play some sport (football, basketball, baseball) or take physical education (PE). Not being a sports person at all, I took PE, taught by coaches who saw those of us in PE as degenerates who couldn’t handle real sports. To cap it all off I grew up in Texas in a very small town where everything revolved around the all-powerful football.
Because of that I’d never stepped foot into any sort of weight room until I went to college. Texas A&M had a brand new and really fantastic student rec center which had volleyball courts, basketball courts, racquetball courts, indoor track, a strength and conditioning room (weight room + cardio equipment), and probably tons more that I never knew about. I remember going into the strength and conditioning room and being overwhelmed with everything in there and not knowing where to start. It didn’t help that I was suffering from some major body-image issues, something that continued until 2016 and still does to some degree. I felt scrawny and ugly compared to all the buff college guys who were working out.
Really it wasn’t until I graduated in 2000 and moved to Austin to work for IBM that I ever entered a gym and didn’t turn around and run. I honestly can’t tell you what motivated me to get a gym membership and start going regularly, but that’s when my fitness journey really started.
Your fitness journey begins where you are, wherever that is. And frankly it’s a journey that lasts a lifetime even as your effort into it over the years ebbs and flows.
Almost two decades ago I started working out at a gym, thus began my fitness journey. In all that time I’ve made a whole lot of progress and have finally landed in a place where I’m ecstatic with how I look.
A friend suggested that I blog about my experience, not because I’m a personal trainer or some fitness guru, but because I’m not — I’m just a nerd who started fumbling his way around a gym.
Initially I resisted this idea because I have zero professional experience in the subject — my Computer Science degree gives me cred to suggest the best sorting algorithm for your dataset, not the optimal superset for the best shoulder workout.
But then Daniel wisely reminded me that I’m the world’s leading expert on my journey, a story that others might find useful. So after giving it some thought, here we are.
I’m blogging about it not because my path was the best or only one, but to show that it might not look like what you would expect. My hope is that in these posts you find something that resonates and helps you on your own individual journey.
If you have questions about my journey drop a comment and let me know!