| NPC Lightweight
Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Cairns, FNQ, Australia Posts: 61 Rep Power: 11 
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Back in about ’94 I had been training hard for a number of years.
I had gone from around 58kg’s [127lbs] to around 85kg [187lbs] fairly lean, which on my 5’7” inch frame looked pretty good.
I was working part time as a gym instructor and had basically thrown my self in to the BB life style.
This of course meant wearing the clothes which suited the image: black baggy genie pants and a bomber jacket branded with my gym logo
What you have to bare in mind is that I was one of those guys who never had a great deal of self esteem, even after 4 years of pumping iron I was like a reverse anorexic, I would look in a mirror and where others could see a bloke 5’7” nearly 190lbs of solid muscle all I tended to see was the skinny bloke I used to be. Seriously! I really had no idea how I appeared to other people.
In retrospect it was pretty weird really.
I had done it completely naturally, not necessarily because I had any thing against ‘roids, but more because they weren’t that common at all in my gym, I never went looking for them and I probably could not have afforded them in the first place.
I was living in Perth, Western Australia but was originally from New Zealand where all my family still lived.
So I decided to pay them a visit.
I had not been home for several years, but when my family and Kiwi friends had last seen me I must have weighed only 58kg, had much longer hair and a moustache.
What a trip it turned out to be, almost a body building epiphany for me.
My first laugh came when I got off the plane to be met by my Parents and Brothers.
We were and still are a close family so it came as a total shock when all 4 of them looked straight through me as if I was invisible as I came out the gate, even as I got within 15 feet and staring straight at Mum she looked away!
I actually had to walk right up and give her a hug to convince her I was her Son!
You would not believe the fuss I caused with in our family until they realized that my personality had not changed, it was just my exterior that had.
A couple of days later I visited an old mate, after the initial “Holy crap you’ve changed” reaction, his younger brother asked for some help. He had started lifting some months before and wanted some advice.
He took me to his gym, It was terrible!, it was in the basement of a huge swimming pool and athletic stadium complex run by the local council.
The equipment was old and decrepit, few free weights, the universal type machine was in bad condition, the carpet thread bare and moldy and the place stank of chlorine.
Truly I must have been one of the more “Accomplished” builders they had ever seen, Believe me when I say this was not to say I was so huge but more that no self respecting builder would have been seen dead in the place!
The Manager made a fuss and said I was welcome to train for free while I was in town etc.
This all changed about 20 minutes in to our leg routine.
At this time I could quite easily leg press like 300+ kg [660lbs]
However, they had no proper incline leg press.
So I jumped on the universal type machine with its poor imitation of a cable leg press, after a quick warm up set I whacked the pin straight to the bottom of the stack.
This was like 150kg [330lbs] but had clearly never ever been used at that weight.
One rep, two reps then BANG!
Next thing I know I’m flat on my back staring at the mouldy ceiling!
The back of the seat had snapped clean off!
The manger was furious, accusing me of abusing the machinery, all the while I’m saying that if the machine can’t handle the full stack, why was it so heavy?
I got thrown out in the end, but to this day I am sure I will always be remembered as the guy who broke the machine and I will be a folk hero to my mates’ brother and his friends that he had dragged along!
The final thing happened on the way home to Perth.
I was traveling in my black genie pants and gym bomber jacket, not so much as a badge of honor as a builder [at that point I still tought of myself as too small to be a real 'builder], but because they were bloody comfortable for the 8 hours on the plane.
We landed in Perth and I collected my bags for the customs check.
Just as I got to the queue for the “Nothing to declare” aisle, I was tapped on the shoulder by a Customs officer.
“Come with me please sir, we would like to have a look at your bags”
I followed the guy in to the small, windowless room with only 2 chairs, a table and a video camera.
I was totally unconcerned, why should I have been? I had no record at all, no known criminal associates, I was genuinely clean.
As he starts going through my bags, I asked what made him pick me out and what was he looking for?
He pointed at my gym clothes and said a guy of “My size” would make them look for steroids.
I was gob smacked! After about 2 seconds I cracked up, I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face.
What’s so funny? he asked
“Mate” I said, “I would not know what steroids looked like even if you loaded the syringe straight from the vial in front of me, and best of all I think you just paid me the biggest compliment I have ever had!”
He immediately stopped the search, placed all my gear back in the bags and said that will be all sir, you are free to go!
At that moment I truly believe that I became a builder in my own mind as well as in the eyes of every one else. |
TEAM BIG PAY CHECK 
