The Method, Part 2

I found this amazing picture of me from freshman year before "the method"  and is compared to my senior year after "the method".   This is where I started, 21 years ago.

Previously in part 1, I mentioned that after my sophomore year of high school that I was back at Stacks Gym training for the summer.  I showed up the first few weeks and just did some random workouts. I really didn’t have a good plan to progressively overload. Bobby, the owner of Stacks Gym, is one of the most jacked dudes.  He is also the nicest and most approachable person you could meet. After a few weeks of talking with him, I would show up to the gym, and Bobby would tell me what to do.  I never had a written program from him.  He would stop doing what he was doing to watch my sets, spot me, and give me feedback, even if he was with clients.  He really took me under his wing.  I wish I had kept a training notebook because I can not tell you where I started.  

By the start of my junior year, I was pushing 135#.   I wrestled in the 130#  weight class on the varsity team. The work I put in at the gym the summer before came in handy while wrestling, but strength only gets you so far.  I stopped taking weight training as a class because I continued to go to Stacks after school. At this point I  had a new love for the barbell, and not much was going to keep me from getting to the gym. Bobby kept getting me stronger the entire year, even during the wrestling season, but I kind of trained stupid.  I  would make sure to hit the weights hard on top of wrestling practice, while trying to cut weight.  I prioritized the gains in the gym over the gains on the mat. 

I found out a few years later that cutting weight for wrestling was easy compared to cutting weight for body building. In wrestling, cutting weight was just losing enough water weight to hit the scales. We would cycle in and out of my buddy's hot tub to sweat off water weight the night before a meet.  I never cut weight for a power lifting meet.  

The summer before my senior year, I got mononucleosis. This knocked me out for a few weeks to a month. Because of mono, I missed wrestling camp, but my interest was already fading. That same summer, I  was selected at school to go to GA Boy’s State, which is some type of government camp. I went because my friends were going, but I was not really interested.   I went on the tail end of mono, but I was not cleared for the sport activity.  Since I was not cleared for the sporting activity at GA Boy's State, I had extra free time to not really do much.   This camp was held at GA Southern University.  Being a gym rat by that point, and wanting to make up the lost gains, I found myself sneaking into the GA Southern weight room.  No one knew I was a high school kid because I was lifting the same or more than the college guys.  

By the start of my senior year, I had gained at least 10 more pounds. I was thinking I was going to have to wrestle 150# weight class.  My senior year, my wrestling coach left the school.  This was the nail in the coffin for me.  Bobby suggested I compete in the 1st annual East Cost Push/Pull meet in early 2002. I decided to not wrestle my senior year and jump fully into power lifting. Bobby had me on a linear progression program over the next few months to get me ready. I was training 4 days a week: chest (you guys know chest day was on Monday), back, legs, and arms and shoulders.

It was very hard for me to gain weight.  I don’t really know how many calories I was eating, but it was a lot. I would eat breakfast, pack a lunch for school, and buy my lunch at school. My sack lunch consisted of at least two double-decker peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a couple of bananas, enough for two weight gainer shakes, probably some candy in there too. I was eating between every class change, and purchased a school lunch on top of my sack lunch. I would eat more after school and my parents would make dinner. It was all about the gains. Supplementation definitely helped with the gains.  Besides weight gainer and creatine monohydrate,  I was taking pro-hormones, 1-AD and T1-Juice.  At the time, both were off the shelf supplements and are now banned.  I could make the pro-hormones last longer, if I only took a half dose and because I was a teenager with plenty of natural testosterone, I still saw big gains. I learn now, 15 years later that these were all basically designer steroids that pharmaceutical companies had abandoned as possible steroids for medical applications...no wonder they were banned.

By the time my first power lifting meet came around, I was putting up very good numbers for my weight.  There were several divisions in my first meet (Teenage push/pull, open Men push/pull, Bench only men, bench only teenage), so I entered them all.  I was 17 years old, worked at Publix supermarket, and could not afford a bench shirt, or dead lift suite.  Luckily Bobby found a suite that fit me, and  I asked my parents for a Inzer double denim bench shirt for Christmas.  Bobby also gave me a power belt, I consistently borrowed from the back room. It has the name, Jeff Pierson,  burned into the inside of the belt, and he said that dude had not been to the gym in two years. I still have the belt today and used it up until last year.   In my first meet I went 6/6  and placed first in every division and was best lifter in both teen and men.   This was not a National power lifting meet, but had a very solid turnout for a local meet.   I was officially a power lifter and I had the hardware to prove it.