My "Boring" But True Stories as a Bodybuilder By Donna The first of my life stories In response to the ridiculously fake stories in most of the Library, I particularly like those of the Big Arm Gym as if anyone could have a 30" arm - how could you wear any clothes?, I have been encouraged to relate some of my life adventures as a muscular women. This is the first story. But since its based on my life, with few if any exaggerations, I'm not sure it will prove to be too interesting to many of you. Today I am a 28 year graduate of a large state college and a major eastern business school and work as an analyst at a famous New York investment bank, although with all of the recently announced layoffs who knows how much longer that will last. Before I decided to write this I weighed myself, and the scales showed that I am now a rather pudgy 145 pounds. I continue to stand 5 feet 7 inches tall. I say pudgy because in my job, I occasionally get involved in matters that require me to work 16 - 18 hours days for weeks at a time and when I do, I feel like a fat blob. Its hard to eat right, sleep enough and fit in a workout when you are living out of a suitcase on the road. But fortunately, I'm single so that I can fit my workouts and meals into my schedule without inconveniencing anyone else. And since I no longer compete as a bodybuilder, I can let myself go on occasion - like right now. I know from reading the various stories in the library and on the message boards that measurements and lifts are important to you guys so let me spell out mine so you have a better understanding of who you are dealing with as you read my story. Biceps currently 14 inches, have been as big as 15 inches. Waist currently 28 inches. See I'm pudgy, but when I'm in shape it is as small as 26 inches. Lifts: best bench 225 for 4 reps at 145 pounds, 255 at 165 pounds although if I went into the gym today I doubt I could put up 175. Squats 365 for reps and a max of 400. I once knocked off 22 chins, but I doubt I could do more than 10 today. Enough of the formalities and on with my story. In 1992, I was in my senior year of high school in suburban Washington DC. I was a good student and an excellent soccer player. In fact, I was a second team All-Met player. I was good enough to get a near full scholarship to one of the great public universities in my state. At the time I was about my present height, but I think I weighed about 115 pounds. I was wiry, with almost no upper body but solid muscular legs. Anyway, about a month prior to graduation, I did a real dumb thing. Some friends and I were hanging out down by a pond smoking a little pot. Anyway, the police came, busted us and sent us home to our folks. My sentence, if that's what you call it was 500 hours of community service, to be performed within 12 months after which any record of my "bust" would be removed from my record. Since I was the soccer star, the community service people thought it would be great if I did my service by coaching youth soccer, but since I had to go out of town for college in a few months that wouldn't work. So I signed up with the Department of Parks & Recreation and figured I'd spend the summer doing landscaping for free, but at least I'd be outside where I could sweat and stay in shape for soccer. Well when I arrived on the job, I was put on a crew with 3 guys, 2 of which were Hispanic and one was black. They were Jorge, the 33 year old boss who was about 5' 6", 150, Leo who was maybe about 30 years old and 5'5", 140 and John, the black guy, who was maybe 25 and 5'10", 165. Needless to say, they weren't big guys, but they didn't take too well to having a "rich" young white girl on their crew. I swear they tried to make my life miserable in every way they could. They laughed at me, called me a slut and a druggie while drinking their own smuggled in six packs all day. One of our jobs was to replant an area that had been ripped up by a stream. We had to carry 40 pound bags of mulch, 50 pound bags of top soil and 80 pound bags of river rocks. I could manage the mulch, and barely handle the soil, but couldn't carry the rocks. So these guys ripped me, they made me carry 2 mulches every time they carried a bag of rocks and they humiliated me all day. I hated it. That joint I smoked made my summer miserable. What was worse was that when I left for college soccer practice in August, I had only completed 340 hours so I had 160 left to do by the end of next year. My first day of soccer practice in college was a revelation. We ran. We got an introduction to the weight room. We practiced. I was wiped out - except that with all of the awful work of the summer I was better prepared than most of the other freshmen. Then on day 3 of practice, my life changed. I blew out my ACL - that's anterior cruciate ligament - my knee was shot. My season was over. But as a scholarship athlete I had an obligation to train myself back into shape. So it was that in August 1992 I stopped being a soccer player and became a bodybuilder. Not all at once, but slowly over time. By week 2 of my rehab, I was able to go to the gym and begin a lifting program. I also met the assistant trainer who I immediately had a crush on. In order to be around Mike as much as possible I went to the gym all the time. And since he was into pushing me, I responded by working my ass off. I made immediate progress. Although, my leg training lagged at first because of my knee, my upper body grew quickly. Since I was planning on getting back onto the soccer team for my sophomore year, I didn't admit yet that I was lifting weights to build muscles, instead I was lifting to be by Mike and to get into amazing shape for soccer. By Thanksgiving, I had a bicep. And I was into it. Not a big bicep - just a little bump on my arm where no bump ever existed before. By this time, Mike was not just my trainer, he was my boyfriend. We'd spend several hours a day training, usually while soccer practice was going on. Then I'd do school work and then go to his apartment (he wasn't a student, but a full time university trainer). Mike was into muscles - on himself, on me, on animals, on everything. In fact, he spent so much time complimenting my progress that I'm certain that he was pushing me for his own enjoyment. He wanted me to have muscles as part of his fantasy so he kept pushing me. He loved to run his fingers on and off my arms and say "next month your arm can be here, and then the next month out to here etc". But who cared, sex with Mike was so much better than I'd had with anyone in high school. My bench press went from about 85 pounds when I started to 135 by Christmas break. I could curl 50 pounds by then too. And for the first time, someone at home noticed my body during winter break at home. I was coming out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me when my 14 year old brother said "wow, check out Donna's arms - they've got veins and muscles and stuff". I acted shocked, but I was so proud. After winter break, I went back into the gym and told Mike that I wanted to get bigger. He was psyched - It was the first time that I acknowledged that I was lifting for more than just rehab. By this time, my knee was just about able to handle a full load and we began to focus on legs. I started lifting heavy. Since the season was over, the other girls on the team came into the gym regularly and they couldn't believe what I'd done in 4 months. Near the end of the school year I spoke with my soccer coach and got a summer camp assignment and training schedule. He was shocked at what I looked like - he even made a comment that he recruited me because of my speed and agility and he hoped having "those muscles" wouldn't slow me down. Its funny looking back on it but I was probably only about 130 pounds at that time. 15 pounds more than what I started school with, but 35- 40 pounds away from what I eventually got to.. But that's another story. Anyway, all freshman girls expect to gain their freshman 15 - its just not often 15 pounds of muscle. It was hard to leave Mike, but I would be coming back to campus several times during the summer. I promised to keep lifting, but I knew that I was going to focus my summer training on building back my speed and getting into soccer shape. I hoped that with the added strength and size I'd win more battles in the air while still being able to out quick my opponent. The other problem was I still had to do 160 hours. I lobbied for a chance to get back on Jorge's team, at least for a week or two. I wanted to show those assholes that I could do "mans work" or whatever they called it when I couldn't lift the bag of rocks the previous year. The first day back with Jorge I saw that John was no longer part of the team. So it was just Jorge and Leo. I showed up wearing sweats. They were real nice to me, which surprised me, but then they started speaking in Spanish and I knew something was up. This day was going to be grass cutting, and lawn fertilizing in a big park by a stream. Sometime after lunch we were done with the cutting and we needed to load the industrial sized bags of fertilizer into the spreader. I guess that Jorge noticed something different about me, since he said "Donna, you are the girl jock, get the fertilizer". The previous year I couldn't lift the 80 pound bag, and by the end of the summer they knew not to even ask me to try. This time I went over by the truck where the bag was, called Jorge and Leo over, pulled off my sweats so I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, reached up grabbed the bag, picked it off the truck, put it on my shoulder and casually walked it to the spreader. I think Leo almost had a heart attack - he kept saying "Madre de dios" or something like that. Then for the first time in my life, I flexed a bicep in front of someone (not counting the mirror or Mike). I just walked up to Jorge, stood right in his face and flexed my right arm right under his nose. He freaked out. He started saying stuff in Spanish that I couldn't understand. Then he said Schwarzenegger. Then he looked at Leo and said "I knew she was a lesbo - that's why she didn't want me last summer." I was so pissed off. I just said to him, that if he had ever seen what my boyfriend and I did in bed he would know I wasn't a lesbian. Then I looked right at his crotch and said I wasn't interested in his little pencil dick. I said I needed a real man to satisfy me and that both of them combined wouldn't be enough man for me. Then I walked over to the truck pulled two bags of fertilizer off, squatted down and put one on each shoulder, 160 pounds total, and walked them over to the spreader. Then I told both of them to get to work spreading the stuff while I cooled off. Well, they did. They walked over and started spreading the field that we had just cut. I was so psyched. I had used my strength to defeat these two guys. I wasn't just psyched, I was horny. So horny that as soon as I got home, I called Mike and told him what happened. Then I told my folks I had to get to campus immediately. I went straight to Mike's house and capped off the best day of my life in bed with him. Part 2 -Sophomore Year By the time I finished with the summer job I had Jorge and Leo eating out of my hand. I would show up in the morning, announce that I had to get my training in and then do my running - sprints followed by jogging and then more sprints. Some days I'd go to the gym and workout. At the end of the day, I'd come back and hang out with my new amigos - I'd bring 'em a beer or two, have a Gatorade and maybe even help out with the day's job. Pretty soon though it was time to report back to school for soccer practice. I had gotten my speed level up to where it was before my injury and I thought my new size helped me in many ways. Before the season started I moved into the starting lineup, not bad for a red shirt freshman. In the first month of the season, I scored 6 goals and our team started off 6-2-2. I was lifting whenever I could, but with practice, games, a full slate of classes and with a sort of break up from Mike, my motivation to build muscle was way down. Then in an important league match on artificial turf, I blew out my surgically repaired knee when I got my cleats caught in a rip in the carpet. I was crushed. A year's worth of rehab and I was finished again. I know that today its probably possible to come back from 2 ACL tears, but in late 1993 I don't think it was. At least my surgeon didn't think so. The university stepped up and guaranteed my scholarship even if I couldn't make it back to the field. I said I would do the rehab again, but I think I was suffering from a full blown depression. Anyway, I finished exams on crutches and spent Christmas at home feeling sorry for myself. Then my little brother stepped up and did something I'm sure he never expected would do what it did. He came over to me and said "Hey, Donna I'm finally taller than you. And I think my arms are bigger than yours." I guess he was secretly comparing himself to the way I looked in the summer when I was last home for an extended time. Then he flexed a nice 15-year old boy arm and asked to see mine. I couldn't believe it but my arms looked almost untrained when I flexed them. Almost all of my muscle was gone. I hated the way I looked. I vowed right then and there that even if I never played varsity soccer again that I wouldn't be an out of shape untoned "little" girl. I thought of the look on the faces of Jorge and Leo when I flexed for them and I thought of the way the girls on the soccer team made comments about my arms and shoulders just a couple of months earlier. The next day I hobbled to the gym in my town and bought a 3 week membership to use during winter break. And I began lifting like a crazy woman. Just upper body stuff. Arms and chest on day 1, shoulders and back on day 2 and then repeat. I worked out about 3 hours a day, 6 days a week for those 3 weeks and when it was time to go back to school, my strength level was just about back to where it was before I stopped lifting heavy in the summer. I was pysched. And I was out of the depression that had gotten me. When classes resumed, I was able to get in a 2 hour workout almost every day. Of course, being in the school gym put me back in touch with Mike. He acted as if nothing happened and was right there helping me, yelling at me and getting in my face to lift heavy. At first we weren't lovers again - I was still pissed when he sort of dumped me when I stopped lifting every day during the season. Like I said before, Mike liked muscles on women and when I stopped lifting and trying to build muscles he stopped showing interest in me. But once I was working heavy he was interested again. I wasn't sure what I should do. I mean it was obvious that Mike liked my body when I was working out hard and heavy and the sex with him had been great, but on the other hand its tough having a boyfriend who only loves your body. Well, around Valentine's Day I finally decided - I was going to treat Mike the way he treated me. I was going to go for it with him - pure sex and no cares about a relationship. I went home to visit my parents for a weekend but decided to show up at Mike's on Sunday afternoon and surprise him. I even went so far as to stop at the school gym and get in an arm workout (I knew Mike wouldn't be there on a Sunday afternoon) before I went over. I went to Mike's apartment, knocked on his door and waited. After about 2 minutes Mike finally opened the door with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was not happy to see me. When I looked past him I noticed a blond girl I had seen at the gym a bunch since the new semester started. She was also in a towel. I was so pissed. I pushed myself past Mike into his living room and started yelling at him. Well, the blond who's name was Tina started yelling back at me. She called me "last year's model". She said that she was Mike's girlfriend now. Then she said that if I didn't leave she would kick my ass. And she might have to. I'm not one to check out other girls, but she was huge. Not ripped, but she must have been 150 pounds and about 5 foot 7. Remember, I was about 130 or so at that time. Finally, Mike stepped in and broke us up before we started to fight - not that I would have fought for Mike. I left and went back to my room. I didn't go to the gym for the next 2 weeks. I couldn't stand to see Mike or Tina. I didn't know what I would do when I saw them. Finally, I just decided to use the new varsity athlete gym where Tina was not allowed. Mike scheduled appointments with athletes there but I figured that I could avoid him reasonably well. I stayed on a half hearted workout schedule. My heart wasn't into it. Then one day in late March, one of the football players that was always in the gym came over and asked if I would spot him. He was benching 265 and said he could use a hand. I agreed and we worked out together the rest of the day. He told me he was a junior college transfer who just started at the school in January. He was trying to put on 25 pounds before his practices started in August. That's why we had never met before. Zach and I began to lift together every day. I had to get back into a running program as my knee was better, but I concentrated more on the weights. Lifting with Zach was different than lifting with Mike because Zach wasn't lifting to look good - he was trying hard to get bigger since he was going to be playing at a higher level of competition. Anyway, I started spending much more time on my legs since they were so far behind my upper body with all of the time that had to stay off of them because of my injury. This was cool with Zach because all he was doing was mass movements, squats, bench press, shoulder presses. During the end of this semester I got my squat to 315 for the first time. I must admit it was pretty cool to be working out in the varsity weight room with the football players and putting 3 plates on each side of the bar and grinding out 5-6 reps. I was able to attract a pretty good sized crowd, especially since I had become a grunter. You know the type, the huge guys who go to the gym and load up the bar with more weight then they should and then grunt out every rep. I learned this from Zach. He would put 450 pounds on the bar and get in there and scream it out, sometimes on each rep. I picked up the habit and soon was grunting my way through heavy workouts. Lots of guys would stop what they were doing and watch or at least listen to me grunt. A couple even started calling me Monica, after Seles the tennis player who was the best player in the world at that time. Anyway, by the time school ended in May 1994 I was up to 145 not at all cut but fairly lean pounds of muscle. I enjoyed pounding weights and food with Zach. Plus by mid-April we were also lovers. Remaining true to form, Zach was also a grunter in bed. We would really go at it. A typical day was wake up sex, big breakfast, classes, huge lunch, classes, lift, huge dinner, sex and study with partying added on the weekend. I spent lots of mornings hung over as I tried to keep up with my new football buddies in the bars, not just the weight rooms. I decided to stay at school during the summer after a short visit home. Zach left for 6 weeks to go home and have his mom cook big meals for him. He had to come back for practice and wanted to be in great shape. I slackened off the lifting to get ready for soccer - my coach caught a glimpse of me in shorts and a tank top one day and asked if I had flipped out. He also asked me to take a drug test because he said anyone who got as big as I did must be doing drugs. Since I wasn't - I got real pissed. It was the beginning of the end of my soccer career. Part 3 - Junior Year I had kinda come full circle by this point. I started lifting to rehab an injury. Then I switched to wanting look-good muscles. Then more rehab and now finally, I wanted strength. The size came with the strength, but I really wanted was to be strong. The problem was that with the beginning of school again, the football players were on a strict training schedule. They had certain allocated times to lift, practice, eat etc. The varsity weight room was either way too crowded to get at anything, or else empty which wasn't what I wanted. I loved lifting to get big and strong - along side the massive football players. They wanted size, strength and power. So did I. At that time, in the fall of 1994, I wanted to be the biggest chick in the gym. I started supplements, among other things.. I ate 4-5 huge meals a day. I grunted. I did everything in my power to get bigger. As for soccer, I failed the physical, which was pretty funny. I mean, I was the strongest girl on the team in nearly any measurable category, but because of my 2 operations, I wasn't cleared to play. The school continued my scholarship so I got to stay at school. That fall all I did was lift, eat and study. Well that's not all I did. I became the biggest bitch I could be. In retrospect, I really hated the way I acted during my junior year. I was up to 155 pounds. I was lifting really heavy. I had no regard to diet. I was a big, bad, evil bitch. I was never really fashion conscious - my usual look was jeans (shorts in the warm months) and tee shirts - but that year I deliberately became anti-fashion. I didn't worry about the way I looked. I dressed in sweats or gym clothes. And I picked fights. With friends, with people who cut me in line, with people that used to be friends. I was a mess. Most of them never got physical, but I messed up two people, which I'm kind of embarrassed about now. The first time, I was out with 2 guys from the football team that I lifted with. One of them was being hit on by a girl from a women's college that always hung out at our school. She made some comment about him hanging out with me that I didn't like. When I told her to stop she said, "why, will you beat me up if I don't, Butch" I just turned around and slugged her right in the gut. She doubled over and I hammered the top of her head so she fell to the ground. My football player friend, Steve ,grabbed me and stopped me from kicking her further. Then he and I left the party. What really makes the story weird is Steve said seeing me pound that bitch turned him on. We went back to his apartment and we screwed around all night. Truthfully we went at each other like animals. It was the wildest night of my life. I think we did it from 11 at night to 3 in the morning and then we woke up and went at it again from 6 to 9.Steve probably outweighed me by 75 pounds, but I swear on that night I felt like I could have kicked his ass. Thinking back on it, at the time I really liked what happened that night. Today, it's the most embarrassing time of my life, but then I really liked being a bully. Steve and I became an item for a while. It was another relationship of mine that was purely physical, because while I was a dean's list student, he was a football lifer. Still spending a couple of months with Steve was part of my first semester junior year life. I was big, strong, wild and mean. But then came the end of term and it was time to go home for a month around Christmas. I got home and my mom took one look at me and shook her head. She was always supportive of me as I played sports and she was even OK with me when I first started lifting and growing the previous 2 years. On my third night home, my mom sat down with me and said she didn't care what I did with my life as long as I was happy. She asked me straight out if I was happy. I said yes. She came over, gave me a hug and said "great, Then I'm happy for you. I'll guess I'll just have to get used to having a daughter that is bigger than my husband." Well this wasn't true, since my Dad is about 3 inches taller than me and even at my heaviest outweighed me by 25 pounds or so. Well, about 3 days later, Steve called and we spoke for 10 minutes. I hung up the phone and realized that my life just changed. Steve was an idiot. Speaking to him on the phone made me realize that I had no interest in him at all other than as a sexual outlet for all the anger that I felt Why was I so angry? Because I lost my soccer career. I lost the one thing I was better than anyone at. The next day, I went to the mall. I got my hair styled and bought myself some nice outfits and shoes. I didn't lift for the rest of vacation. I stopped eating 4-5 meals a day and went back to eating regularly again. By the time school started for the spring I had lost 15 pounds. I would eventually settle in at about 135 pounds, which was 30 or so less than I weighed when I was at my most massive. I dumped Steve. I stopped lifting. I got my head on straight. But I still didn't have soccer. I played lots of intramural sports, but I missed competing at the highest levels. To be continued if you want me too. I've enjoyed going back through my life and would be happy to write more if anyone is interested. Leave me a note on the readers and writers board if you want me to bring this story forward from 1995 to the present.