After high school, I took time off and just did nothing, cried and just got very depressed and being at home with my dad wasnt making life any easier. He kept pushing me to get a job when I knew i wasnt up for it and not because I didnt want one, I wanted to just be myself and break myself from this depression and anxiety so I left my dads and moved a few miles to live with my mom. I needed the change and this was the only place where I felt safe and get my anger out and create new things for myself.
In september of '03 I went to a small community college in Aptos, CA about 10 miles from where I lived and went to classes for a week and told myself "this isnt you and things wont get easier later on" so I left college to do weightlifting full-time. I signed up for a 2 year application and went to the gym. I lifted around 3 times a week sometimes 6 and had my ups and downs. Tried every routine in the book and all I wanted to do was lift heavy weights and just wanted to powerful as hell, I let out my inner hulk and just blasted everything that was near me. I went as far as to passing out from doing a circuit and just didnt realize where I was and just fainted.
I lost weight, gained weight, lost and gained again and this went on for two years and at a certain point I was around 260 pounds and it wasnt all that much muscle either. I did protein shakes, ate the bars, lift whatever the advanced bodybuilder was doing and just didnt get anywhere yet kept going. I ended up hurting my right knee more and pulled hams, bum elbow, bad wrists and I was in no way of getting "hardcore" looking abs. I just didnt have the mentality but the fire to keep going.
I lost the weight and wanted to try out powerlifting cause I thought I was pretty good at nearly 1500 total pounds in the three lifts plus i can go all day doing 600 pound leg presses so I thought i'd try. 2 days after my last run at the gym I went to the beach with some girls and had a little picnic with them and wanted to jump off this 25ft cliff that was directly above us. Me and a girl went up (i've jumped off this several times prior to this day) and she jumped of the right side and i jumped on the left (very stupid) and something terribly went wrong with the landing.
I landed so hard on the sand that my ankles just broke and I was in excrusiating pain, I lifted up my left leg as much i can muster and it looked pale and like a little broken slinky it rocked side to side. As much as I was in pain I wanted to get out of the water and so with everything I had I used my upper body to crawl to shore and it was only 15ft but felt like a mile. One woman told me to get up and I thought I was gonna whack her cause everyone there knew i couldnt just get up. A couple guys pulled me in and the girl I went with called the ambulence while I was laying in the sun trying not to be in pain and think positively when no one in their right mind would at a time like this. The paramedics came and asked me all the dumb questions you get asked and answered everyone of them without even blinking. Got rolled up on the girney and was strapped in and carried me up the cliff on the other side.
At the hospital this where I just lost it and thought I would never walk again. I wanted to see everyone I knew and just be with them. I was covered in sand from head to toe and was freezing my ass off. After they ran some tests on me I found out the bad news. I shattered my left tibia-fibula in half as well broke almost all the bones in both my ankles and there was no chance in hell i'd walk within the next year. I had surgery that night and ended staying in the hospital for 5 days and hatting every minute of it.
I was told right from there I needed a 6-8 month recovery if I didnt want to put a rod in there and if I did it be a little quicker but a much better chance of getting it infected. As a stubborn ass I chose the rod cause I told everyone I was gonna beat this and get stronger without too much help. I was so fired up that one day when I first learned to get into a wheel chair, they asked me to use the pull-up handle at the top of the bed and use 2 hands plus 2 other people to help me. I ended up doing a one-arm pull-up and jumped into the chair lol. I thought those guys were gonna die from shock. I never did a pull-up in my life until then. That was my first sign of bodyweight training. Anyway I learned how to use the wheel chair and went home a couple days later getting a hospital bed for the living room.
It was aggrevating cause I had a cast on that covered my entire left and couldnt move very well. I started making up lifting routines for my recovery and for some odd reason I kept throwing them away cause I knew there was something missing in that picture. So for weeks and weeks having a second surgery and in and out of hospitals I started researching for rehabing leg injuries and I came across this site that only focused on Bodyweight Training and was just fasinated by it. 2 weeks before my last surgery I ordered this guys book and was just in awe of what it had in it. I told myself this is the program for my rehab, no physical therapy just plain old school bodyweight training. I got so fasinated by it I started checking out other sites on the subject and I came across this site called Bronze Bow.
My last surgery was July 29th, exactly 2 and a half months after my accident I had the oppertunity to start walking again. I didnt hesitate that 2 days after my surgery my first job was to start training and strengthen those suckers. Since I got other books off this guys site I got another book that had the title Pushing Yourself To Power. Got it at a local borders in my hometown and started reading it. Loved the exercises and got hooked.
5 months after learning how to walk again and training to strengthen them, I was put to another gruelling test. I went to Lake Tahoe in January of last year with the family and just wanted to have some fun, went through a rough time about a girl and nobody was liking what I did for training and watching and studying conditioning dvds, I challenged myself to one of the most brutal workouts at one of the highest altitudes in the world. It was called the Karl Gotch Bible where you take a deck of cards and whatever number comes up you do that many push-ups or squats. Being crazy and stubborn I wanted to beat the deck and just have some fun with it. I had my dad flip the cards and tell me what number it was and what type of push-ups i would do, I kept the squats naturally. After about 25 min. I looked at my dad and he said "Ben, you just did an entire deck of cards, you are one crazy bastard" and my stepmom told me how high up we were in the mountains and I think she said around 15,000ft and told me a small few of world class athletes can pull off something to what I just did and they're jaws stayed dropped for god knows how long.
Over the next year I just started amping up by adding a few feats of strength to my regimen and train whatver I can and push myself when I need to and its kept me happy. I'm apart of one of the best forums on the planet and its founder has helped me reach goals I never thought possible and his encouragement and wisdom has inspired me and I feel like I have a new family to look up to. There are a few people I want to thank for pushing me and encouraging me to be my best and shoot whatever i want to achieve new goals and new feats:
Tyler Bramlett
Logan Christopher
Matt Furey
Brooks Kubik
John Wood
And last but not least: John Peterson. I wanted to save the best for last and although we've only talked and chatted a few times I still feel my guardian angel wanted me to contact you and be apart of your forum. You have giving me a new hope for building super strength and conventional wisdom and knowledge and I believe you and I were meant to speak to each other and meet one another and its giving me a whole new blessing. Thank you my friend and I hope in the near future i'll join the Bronze Bow Team as an author and teacher to all. Best wishes and hope to talk to you soon my brother.
If any of you guys need a place to go to to get great info on fitness and look for people that you want advise from Bronze Bow is the place to go. You won't regret it. Hope all who reads this understand that what you want in life it wont come to you on a silver platter, take it and never let it go. Never feel you're too old to do anything you want. Believe in yourself and you will go far.
Yours in Power & Might
Ben
email me at bronzebowpublishing.com or at Wrestlenerd84@yahoo.com and tell me what you thought of this story.
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