Hello guys, my name is Anze and I’m a 24 years old. I live in beautiful Ljubljana, Slovenia. I’m a personal trainer with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. I love lifting weights, training, playing sports etc.
That’s the basic description of myself. The kind you would do when you’d introduce yourself to the rest of the class. Oh, god how I didn’t like those first introductions at school and then highschool and then college again. But thankfully we’re over that now.
Where should we begin? Ok, let’s start in highschool. I was always into sports. Soccer, tennis, basketball etc. But in highschool I stepped into my first gym/fitness. I was a part of our PT class.
Growing up I was super skinny. A true ectomorph in every sense of the word. (Ectomorph is a body composition type, describing skinny people with fast metabolism and a slow rate of adding on muscle mass).
So, I started reading articles about lifting weights, buying my first protein shake (that’s a whole another funny story by itself) and really getting into the “pumping iron” scene. I remember that I didn’t watch a lot of youtube videos and tutorials, maybe there wasn’t a lot of fitness content up at that time in 2007, 2008.
I never was a big eater, never had a big of an appetite. So it was tough for me to add on size. I got myself a trainer who was a friend of mine. He was older and a professional athlete (a sprinter). He trained me and I saw my first true gains. But after a while I stopped training with him and continued on my own. I still improved but it was hard to be consistent with my visits to the gym. We didn’t have any gym nearby, I didn’t have my driving license yet so the only option was the school’s gym. And even that was open maybe two times a week after school. And my diet was way off also, not consuming enough calories and so on.
When the time to apply for college came I decided to go to Faculty of Sports in Ljubljana. I learned a lot of stuff there. I was able to stay in touch with my love of sports while learning about theory and practices of strength training and conditioning. I learned a lot of other topics too but these were my favorite.
I was learning but was I lifting weights and making progress? Yes and no.
In the first year of college I got really sick. I dropped a lot of weight. The hard earned muscle mass from high school was gone. Just like that. So I had to start all over again. It was hard for me to find motivation to start lifting weights and gaining quality muscle mass. I didn’t have a job or any kind of financial support so that I could buy loads of food (which I needed) and supplements. But the main purpose for my lack of motivation was that altough I was studying the exact theories that would help me build muscle I still wasn’t confident enough in my knowledge and abilites. I had a hard time sticking to a program. I payed a personal trainer for a nutrition program but after a couple of months I quit.
For ectomorphs to build muscle mass and for all goals in general you have to be consistent to succeed. That I was not. Not even close. It was just ups and downs with me.
Years went on. Just passing by. Every year went by quicker in my head. Nonetheless I still hadn’t give up on being “big”. I studied. I read. I watched. I felt more confident with what I know. I had a few gym buddies that we trained together. I was going to the gym every weekday. I was gaining weight. Some of that were muscles. Some of that (quite a bit) was fat.
In 2016 I decided to go down to at least 10% bodyfat. That didn’t happen. I just didn’t follow through those 3 months or more that I would need to lose that body fat. This year before summer I tried again. Didn’t quite make it. But I stuck with it. I said to myself that I won’t go on another bulking phase until I drop serious amounts of fat. I found a personal trainer and stuck with him. Two months went by and I’m still sticking with it. Altough I learned a lot through these years of reading every single article I could find I still have to have another person to be accountable to.
So basically I’m a personal trainer who needs a personal trainer.
To average gym-goers that doesn’t make sense. But to those that are serious about it and love to lift weights know that despite your own knowledge and expertise it’s still important to have another “expert” monitoring you. Because we humans are so critical that you have to have someone that will say to you “Don’t quit. You are making progress. Stick to it. Don’t quit.”
A few months will still have to pass to achieve my goal but now at least my mind is set. There’s no quitting. One day at a time. These cliches actually do work. Be consistent, be determined and never ever quit.