A lot of people mistakenly think that you need to have a ripped physique when you hit the gym. Everyone expects to have a ripped physique. Not really!!! You don’t need to. Even if you don’t have a ripped physique, keep at it. You don’t need to have a perfect muscular physique. It would be nice, but it’ll take a while to get there like I always say. You shouldn’t feel guilty if you haven’t got a successful ripped physique yet, you should just be happy that you changed your lifestyle.

I mean, before I started fitness, I used to be addicted to junk food. Yes, I was on a junk food diet. Eating sugary breakfast foods like cereals, a lot of fast food, I drank a lot of soda, junky snacks at night, etc. I look at myself and said, “I need to stop this, and get more healthier!” So I grew up and totally changed my lifestyle. For the past 4 years, I’ve been eating clean most of the time and working out hard.

Fitness will help make you look healthy on the outside and the inside. The inside will certainly make your doctors happy.  Exercise and clean eating will help lower your cholesterol and high blood pressure. It’ll also help you prevent diseases like type 2 diabetes and all that stuff. Plus, fitness will help not make you sick a lot.

Living your life on a bad nutrition is bad for your health ’cause it’s bound for an early death. Fitness will also help make you a stronger heart, doing a lot of cardio stuff. So don’t be so obsessed with wanting a muscular body so badly and just enjoy life being healthy, that’s it.

I found out that I lost two pounds today just by doing the fitness & clean nutrition and my doctor said that I’m at the point where I am pretty lean. So I feel good. I’m trying to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, and I’m on the right track!!! My goal is being achieved pretty nicely.

Kev

I think I improved the chest muscles a little bit already, they could be a little bigger, yes, but it takes time to get a huge chest. I’m just proud of what I have now. The one thing you don’t want to do is listen to all those critics out there. Sometimes the critics just make stuff up just to try and make you feel bad, out of jealousy.

I’ll post new progress pics tomorrow. The Ipad seems to take better photos than the regular digital camera. I got a decent bodybuilder chest going right now. I’ll post the pics to prove it. It is getting results.

Kev

I left a comment in some personal trainer’s youtube video, the Micah Lacerte, “HitchFit” channel, telling him that I started late and predicted I could become ripped at 50, since I believe it takes years to get a ripped body, but he replied with this response:

“The good thing about starting later is at this stage in your life you are capable of adding muscle on far more quick then at 18 years old.. You will get to your goal far before 50 buddy!!!”

I thought that was a great response so I thought I would share it here.

He does seem to have a valid point. Even if I’ve been doing fitness for 4 years now, I’m already getting muscular, bigger, and getting great results this soon.

In fitness, I keep going all year round with taking 1 or 2 weeks off a year. You have to have a week off once in a while, just don’t over do the breaks. Also, if you eat clean most of the time, do lots of resting and sleeping, you could get ripped quicker that way.

I’m still trying to improve my pecs, so it can look like an actual bodybuilder chest, but I’m doing the best I can. That’s one goal I hope to achieve this year.

Kev

The way I look at it, bodybuilding and guitar playing are kind of similar. How? When you first start playing guitar, you knew nothing about it at first. You learn the guitar by learning easy basic stuff from the instructional books and then you build your way up from there. 20 years from now, you’ll be playing like a guitar god.

It’s the same with bodybuilding. When you first get into bodybuilding, you knew nothing about it. You start off learning the easy stuff at first, and then build from there. People make the mistake that you can build great muscle in such a short period of time, when the sad reality is, muscle building is a slow process. It takes years to look like a giant pro bodybuilder. I may look okay and decent now, but I still got a lot of ways to go and lots to learn.

The muscle magazines and Hollywood movie stars made it easy for you to believe that you could build muscle quicker but it’s not true. I’ve been bodybuilding for 4 years now, and I’m still young. While I’m still young, is a perfect time to get into it, ’cause I’m predicting, I’ll be really jacked when I turn 50. I believe that’s the age when I’ll look like a pro bodybuilder. That’s what I’m kind of hoping for.

Back to guitar playing, I’ve been playing for 15 years now and still got lots to learn just like with bodybuilding. I want to play like a guitar god someday and it’s going to take many years to get up there. There are too many guitar players around here (not naming names) who think they’re so great, when the reality is a lot of them are shit (probably worse than me). Famous guitar players like Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani, and Clapton. They didn’t become a guitar god over night even if it seemed like they did. They’ve been playing the instrument for way over 30 years. I do hope to play good like that someday and doing the best I can.

People just don’t like hearing the truth that it takes years to get good at something. It just needed to be said.

Kev

Not only that bodybuilders who have scoliosis have a hard time getting accepted into the fitness world, another problem we have is the feedback with the progress photos. A lot of people have a hard time looking at bare backs that are curvy and all. A lot of them think it’s creepy and disturbing to look at, even though they don’t want to admit that the back is pretty defined and muscular. That’s why those kind of photos either get mostly negative feedback or no feedback at all.

Thing is, I used to be afraid to go shirtless in front of people ’cause I  was afraid of the kind of feedback I’d get. No matter what people think of my progress photos, you should still give me credit for the bravery and confidence. I’m no longer afraid to go shirtless anymore. Fitness helped me become more confidence.

If my spine was perfectly straight and normal, maybe people would accept it more, but I’m not perfect and there’s  nothing I can do about this. It’s how I’m going to live.

I’m going to keep doing this fitness thing for the rest of my life, and will keep going throughout 2012. I hope to get better at nutrition and become more leaner & muscular in the new year. I’m going to keep doing what I do, no matter what people say or think.

Kev

A lot of people mistakenly think that people with scoliosis shouldn’t get into bodybuilding and weightlifting. Why do they think that? It’s because they have a fear of lifting heavy would damage the spine. They fear that lifting weights will make the curvature of the spine curve even worse. They also fear that it could break their backs with heavy lifting.

When I first started, I even had worries about all that stuff myself and started off with the safe and simple workouts before I got into all the challenging stuff like benching, leg press, and all that stuff.

I’m 4 years on in bodybuilding now, and I’ve never had any problems. The truth is, anybody can get into bodybuilding, no matter the body condition you’re in. I mean, hell, I’ve even seen guys in wheelchairs lifting weights in the gym, and old men on walkers too. Anybody can get into it.

I can understand why people with scoliosis have a hard time being accepted into the bodybuilding world. After a couple of years working out, I did get my x-ray done once just to check the spine of the rod to see if it got any more damage, but it didn’t get worse at all. It was still the same and fine.

Bodybuilding for people with scoliosis is pretty safe. I don’t think it harms the spine at all.

I mean, you have to look at Lamar Gant. Lamar Gant is a professional powerlifter, broke world records, and is in the Powerlifting Hall of Fame. Lamar is still alive as well. Even though he had a really bad curvature (look at pics in google), he was still able to become an amazing bencher and powerlifter. He became successful at it. So you have to say to yourself, “Hmmmm, if Lamar can do it, so can anybody”, right?

It’s all about finding the right workouts that is safe for you. I don’t think I’m going to do any squatting anymore, and I avoid deadlifting. Anything that looks risky and dangerous for my back, I won’t do.

So yeah, I know what is safe for me and what is not, so I’m all good. Anybody can get into bodybuilding. Doesn’t matter who you are.

Kev

At the gym today, I was doing T-Bar rows and this other guy came up to me and said I was doing it wrong. I was pretty sure, I was doing it right. I did it the way, Arnold’s Bodybuilding Encyclopedia told me to do it, you’re supposed to bend down halfway. This other guy told me to do it standing up with knees slightly bent and bend your back slightly, not all the way down. I look at other videos and websites, researching the correct way to do it, and it looks like I was doing it right way before.

That’s the problem with the gym, everyone has their own way of doing workouts. One person says you’re doing things wrong, is just their own opinion sometimes.

When people say you’re doing things wrong when you’re pretty sure you’re doing it right, then that means they are probably wrong, lmao. I was pretty sure I had the T-Bar row thing correctly. I did a lot of research on the workout before hand, I do my homework before I do a workout.

Kev

I do most workouts at the gym in good form but once in a blue moon, someone sees a workout I’m doing wrong and they’ll politely correct me how to do it. Usually at the gym, it bothers other people when they are caught doing things wrong, but it don’t bother me. When people disagree how I do things, I actually like it when people at the gym teach me things. It shows that they are a bit concerned and they care for other people’s safety. People don’t like being taught how to do things right at the gym ’cause they think they know what they’re doing most of the time. I never had that attitude ’cause I always left my ego out the door.

You should take other people’s advice at the gym, ’cause it’s better to be safe, than sorry, ya know? If you don’t do things in good form at the gym, you could find yourself in an ambulance and get thrown in an emergency room. Even if you don’t get injured, you won’t hit the right muscle target. That’s why good form is important.

I was at the gym today doing back workouts and it happened twice to me that two different people taught me how to do things right. It’s mostly the back workouts is tricky to get the right form.

I don’t feel bad being taught how to do things by other people at the gyms, ’cause it’s called learning. I’m still a newbie at bodybuilding, so I’m just learning still.

Even the most experienced bodybuilders and the pros are not perfect, they do things wrong too. Always having a positive attitude in fitness is the way to get successful.

Kev

There is this fitness trainer in facebook named Heather Frey from SmashFit, who posted this little fitness motivation tip, that I thought it was pretty inspiring, I thought I would pass it along here.

“Don’t be jealous of, or envy those super fit people. Don’t think for one minute they are any better than you. The only thing they have that you don’t, is ACTION. They took all the same *desire and want* you have but they didn’t sit on it, they ACTION-ized it. They stood up to their bad habits, they walked away from temptation and they pushed themselves when they didn’t feel like it. That is the only thin veil between them and you. THAT could be you. -Heather Frey”

Here’s her post here to give her credit.

I’m never jealous of other people if they are in better shape than me. I know some people who are in better shape than me, but I look at them for inspiration and motivation as an idea of how I would want to look like.

She’s so right, that just because people are in perfectly good shape successfully, doesn’t mean they are better or stronger than you. There are too many in good shape people who go around acting like they are better than others when they aren’t really.

I may have a decent start in fitness, and I may be in decent shape now, but I still have ways to go, and lots to learn. I also never acted like I’m better than others.

That was a pretty inspiring post. If you know people who are in way better shape than you, don’t let it bring you down. If that’s who you want to be is a super fit person, then take your time, keep it up and you’ll get there.

I want to become the best shape of my life someday but I’m not rushing it.

Kev