Title stolen from Charles Fay’s
elitefts article
By George Beckham
I came into Diablo for the first
time weighing in at 215 pounds. 5
months ago, I was skinny, overconfident, and thought I had some idea of what
training was. I had my six-pack still,
and I was proud of it. Flash-forward to
today- sometimes I can see the outline of where my abs used to be, but who
cares? I’m a few steps forward on the
path to being strong as hell.
The first week I was at Diablo was
during my spring break .I lifted with
the old dogs, Kevin and Bear. They’re
both easygoing guys, so my introduction to real training was fairly easy. My first weight goal was easy too- “Gain 10
lbs before summer or you can’t lift here”.
10 weeks, 10 lbs. Easy.
I gained the weight, and came in
ready to roll. One week passed, and I
got two pieces of bad news. One, I had
a hernia, and had to get operated on.
Two, I had to gain 25 lbs before Steve’s birthday, which was about a
month and a half away.
I dicked around for the first
couple of weeks when it came to eating.
After an APC meet (the first Powerlifting meet I’d ever been to) my
appetite soared. I said some of the wrong
things to the wrong people, and earned myself a helluva lot of tireflips. Four training days in a row I flipped tires,
until I was temporarily relieved of my sentence. I realized that more punishment was in store if I didn’t make
weight, so I got real hungry, real quick.
Out came the snickers bars, the
burger king, and the ice cream. I
gained weight pretty quick, then got stuck 5 lbs off my goal. This called for drastic measures. Named in honor of the Woodland Crew’s shake,
the “Scale Breaker” was born. Made of
ice cream, cytogainer, whole milk and bananas, this thing topped out at about
1800 calories. I drank that shit twice
a day. In two weeks I gained 15
lbs. The day I weighed in I got two
great things: a smoked weight goal, and a doctor’s clearance to lift heavy
again. Fuck yeah!
My last weight goal was easy. I just needed a slow 10 lbs to finally get
me to 270. I weighed in at the deadline
with a nice 270.5 pounds.
Looking back at it now, I realize
that I did get a little bit fat, but shit, who cares? I put 155 pounds on my squat, 70 pounds on my bench, and 115
pounds on my deadlift in 5 months even with a hernia surgery. Every Snickers and Rodeo Cheeseburger was
well worth it.
---- Ted: I don’t know if you want to count the
shirted lift on my bench, but if you do, then I actually put 160 lbs on my
bench.