I first started training to get bigger and stronger for football in the middle of my eighth grade year. I immediately fell in love with weight training. I loved seeing myself get bigger and stronger. This continued throughout high school, and into college where I continued my football career. After tearing my ACL for the second time, ending my football career after my sophomore year, is when I first began to look at weight training as something more than just to get prepared for football. I started reading articles and visiting websites about powerlifting. I knew I would love it because I already loved the barbell lifts and being as strong as I could be. However, I knew I wanted to train to look good also which lead me to dabble in the bodybuilding lifestyle. As time went on I realized there was no reason why I had to pick one set way of training. So I started training in a way that is now commonly called “powerbuilding” which combines bodybuilding training with training for power and strength. Up to this point I have never competed in a competition of any sort but I am currently training for a push-pull (deadlift and bench) completion in early April. The reason I am sharing this with you is so that you can see that I am in this with you. I have faced or am currently facing similar challenges as you. This is important for me to share with you because when I first started working out I often wondered if I was doing things right or if people were facing the same problems as me. I would look at older, bigger guys and think “man they have it all figured out, they have to know everything there is to know.” Well, as I started reading and watching videos of famous powerlifters and bodybuilders I started to realize that they face the same problems I was facing. Growing up my favorite people to follow were the ones that showed their human side. They showed their failures and struggles but they also showed how they overcame those problems. I found it refreshing that someone at the top of their “game” could face the same problems as me. This gave me confidence that certain challenges I faced were normal and I just had to find a way to overcome them. Because of this, I will share my failures with you as well as my successes. I look forward to in the future getting feedback from you, the readers, about what topics you would like me to write about. I think that we will find that many of you have the same questions about certain things.