At the "Y" by muscle16a

[muscle16a]

[COLOR=cyan]At the "Y"[/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]by muscle16a[/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan][COLOR=#ffffff]email me at - [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=cyan][email protected][/COLOR]
alternate email - [COLOR=cyan][email protected][/COLOR]




[COLOR=cyan]My family has been members at the YMCA near my house for years now, and I've gone there for swimming, basketball, summer day camp, and stuff like that since I was about 7 years old. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I'll never forget the first time I went to the "Y": From the front door where they check your membership card to the back where the men's locker room is, you pass the weight room. I would always slow down and look inside as I passed, and in time the main reason why I would go to the "Y" was for the few seconds or minute or two that I would be able to see the guys lifting weights. Even at a young age, I was fascinated by bulging rippling muscles. The rules of the "Y" were that you had to be 14 years old to use the weights. Most of the people who used the weight room were old guys (which, when I was a kid, meant anybody over 25 or so), but sometimes - especially after school hours - there were some teenage boys using the equipment. I loved watching them lifting, competing to see who was strongest, flexing their muscles to see who was the biggest or the buffest. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I remember a time very clearly when I was 11 years old, and I passed the weight room on my way to the pool to swim, when I saw a guy who looked to be about 14 or 15 years old. He was about 5'10", 150 pounds or so, and totally ripped. He had blond hair and bright blue eyes, and I couldn't see any hair on his arms or legs. He was wearing a white tank-top, and was doing curls. He looked kinda tough, mean like, but I thought he was really hot. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I slowed down and then stopped to watch. As he raised the dumbbells, I saw his biceps bunch up into a peak that really impressed me. Even though he wasn't that big, he was really defined and had veins running up and down his biceps and forearms, and those veins seemed to swell and writhe with every repetition. Looking back later, I don't think he was lifting any more than maybe 30 pound dumbbells, but at the time I thought he was SO strong! With every rep, his biceps bunched up into a high peak, and as he lowered the weight to the bottom of the rep, I saw his triceps become pronounced in that horseshoe shape that turned me on so much even back then. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I continued to look at him and noticed that even when he was standing in a relaxed posture, his chest stuck out about an inch or more past his stomach, which, even through his wife-beater, was showing the pronounced ridges of a well developed 6-pack. His shoulders were wide for his age, and his delts extended wells beyond his collarbone to create that really hot muscle separation between shoulder and triceps that I have since come to admire so much. His legs, while skinny, were really defined too: I could see the "teardrop" muscle on the inside of each thigh, and his hamstrings bulged out almost like a biceps muscle does. His calves had that diamond shape that, while not large, showed that he was in really fit condition. The image consumed me. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]As he kept doing his dumbbell curls, he suddenly looked at me watching him, and turned and yelled "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, FAGGOT?" Of course, I immediately turned and ran away! "How did he know?" I thought. Later, I understood the word was a more general insult . . . but I knew who and what I was, and was sensitive to the idea. He frightened me, but I never forgot it, or him, or his body! For months afterwards, the image of him doing those curls, watching his bulging defined muscles, was often on my mind and in my dreams. In fact, a few days after my 12th birthday when I had my first "wet dream", he and his muscles played a prominent part in that dream. I don't remember the details of the dream, but I remember him and his body, and I remember suddenly realizing that I had finally reached a milestone of boyhood. I was growing up! [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]It wasn't long after that milestone that I came to a decision: I didn't just want to think about muscles and look at guys who had them. I wanted to HAVE muscles! I wanted to be the guy that other kids like me looked at and envied. So I started working out. At first (since I was only just 12, and couldn't use the weights) it was simple exercises. I did push-ups every morning after I got up and right before bed. Sit-ups too, and knee-bends. My older sister had a chin-up bar on the door to the cellar from when she did gymnastics, so I used that for chin-ups and leg-lifts too. Eventually, I began to place my feet on a dictionary to make my push-ups harder, and sometime later the dictionary became a chair, then my bed, then up the wall until I was doing handstand pushups. That progression took about a year or so. Sit-ups progressed to crunches, eventually holding that so-useful dictionary behind my head as I did them . . . and later with my legs bent and resting on a chair to make it even harder. I started holding my bowling ball when doing knee-bends, and subsequently holding a bowling ball bag (with ball inside) in each hand as I squatted in my room every night. I never figured out a way to make chin-ups harder, but I did more of them all the time Most of all, I FLEXED. Whenever I wasn't doing anything else, I was flexing my muscles. Studying, reading, watching TV, I always was flexing one muscle group or another. I saw a book called "Isometrics" in the school library, and copied those movements as part of my exercise routine. But I still stopped at the door of the weight room whenever I was at the "Y", and dreamed for the day when I could use the equipment. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]After about a year of this kind of low-intensity exercise routine, at 13 years old or so, I had actually progressed quite well. I didn't know it at the time, but I had good genetics for muscle building, and even though I was a kid, I was getting a good shape on me. Looking at pictures now, years later, of me at 13 years old - at the beach or the pool or whatever - I can see that I looked like a little athlete. Not big, not ripped, but very well shaped for my age. I knew from armwresting in the school lunchroom that I was one of the stronger kids in my class. But it wasn't enough. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]Then, some time later, I found a book about strength training for kids in the public library downtown. It talked about making your own weights with empty paint cans filled with sand or cement attached to old broom handles. You know, that kind of thing. After a few rounds of trial and error, I had managed to make one very rough barbell of about 30 pounds in weight, and two dumbbells of about 10 pounds each. So I added resistence exercises to my routine, and stopped working out every night (as the book had suggested). I was doing curls, military press, bench press, rowing, and squats with my poor-man's weights. And I continued doing my isometrics as well, and rarely went to sleep without first doing a flexing routine in front of the mirror in my room. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]It was working: I was developing quite a good physique for a 13 year old. I was only about 5'6" or so, and weighed around 110 pounds at most, but I don't think I had any extra fat on my body. Again, looking at pictures years later of myself at that age, I realize that I was quite a buff little boy: I didn't see it on myself, of course. I thought of myself as skinny and weak. But I recognize now that I wasn't. Isn't it funny how our perceptions of ourselves are so distorted by our emotional state? For me, I didn't think of myself as buff, though I wanted to be, so even though I was pretty muscular for my age all I could see in the mirror was a skinny little boy. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]As my 14th birthday approached, as puberty ratcheted up to full gear, as my height and skeletal frame began showing signs of maturation, I realized that I had been pretty seriously exercising for about 2 years. And it showed (to others more than to me, I guess). I was now about 5'8" or so, and weighed about 125 pounds. I had almost no body fat at all. My waist and hips were quite narrow, still boyish, but my shoulders showed the signs of two years of training. I had visible veins running from my shoulders to my fingers (though not like the memory of the boy in the weightroom that started it all for me). My biceps bunched up as I flexed them (which was quite often), my triceps were visible, my chest definitely showed some small amount of muscle above the ribs, and I actually had the makings of a slight 6-pack My legs in particular were stronger looking than most of the boys my age - I learned that even boys who lift weights at that age rarely do legs, which gave me an advantage in that department. I was proud of the bulges in my thighs and calves when I rode my bicycle. They were skinny, but what there was was muscle. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]FINALLY I had my 14th birthday in January of my last year in Junior High (8th grade). Needless to say, as soon as I got out of school that day, I went to the "Y" and got my ID card stamped as "over 14"!!! I'll never forget that first day in the weight room. I ridiculously over-trained (as might be expected), and paid the price the next few days with incredible muscle soreness. But finally I was a big boy using the big-boy weights! There was no stopping me now. After 2 years of low-intensity training, with my newly pubescent body craving stimulus, I began to make really fast progress. In the course of a few weeks, I was lifting weights that surprised me: I was curling 30 pound dumbbells for reps! I was benching 135 pounds!! (using the 45 pound plates for the first time was a major accomplishment). My 2 years of preparation and attention to details of form and motion stood me in good sted, and my body began to explode! No matter how much I ate (and I really ate a lot), I just didn't seem to gain any fat. My ridges in my abs became deeper, the separation between my ever-expanding shoulders and my triceps became more pronounced. The peaks in my biceps became higher and higher, my muscles harder and harder. My legs started growing more, and that lovely "teardrop" muscle just inside and above the knee that always impressed me so much became more visible. My calves bulged as I climbed stairs (I would often look over my shoulder to see that as I went up stairs), my triceps would pop out whenever I rested my hands on a desk or table or something (and I found myself doing that more and more often, just to see the look on guys faces). And my chest started to push out with that noticeable plate-like look that I remembered so well from that day, over 3 years earlier at the "Y" and the boy in the wife-beater. I was still rather slim, but what I had was strong, hard muscle. I was14 and as spring (shirtless-weather) approached, eighth grade was nearing its end. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]In the lunchroom, there wasn't anybody who could beat me in armwrestling. There was one guy who I couldn't beat, though he couldn't beat me either. But he outweighed me by about 80 pounds. He was pretty fat, but strong, and I was skinny and strong. But as we armwrestled his arm was just a big blob of fat while my muscles bulged and the guys stared with envy. And 3 days a week, after school, I would bike to the "Y" to lift weights. And I got stronger and bigger and buffer. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]During the summer before 9th grade, when I was 14-1/2, I really started to train like my life depended on it. I wanted to be noticeably muscular for High School. I changed my routine to a three-on one-off schedule, and found myself spending 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, at the "Y" weight room. I was about 5'9" tall, and weighed about 140 pounds and none of it was fat. As I look at pictures from those days, I see that I was really quite unusually muscular for a 14 year old. Highly defiined and hard muscled. My waist and hips were still quite boyish (as they remain even today, years later), my shoulders rather broad for my age. Veins bulged on my arms, from the tops of my hands to my shoulders, and on my lower abs, and running up my calves and thighs, and even a few on my chest when I flexed really hard. I was quite strong for my age, benching 205 pounds for 3 reps max.. And I loved to lift. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]One day, in August a few weeks before I was set to start High School, I was lifting at the "Y" in the early evening. I remember very clearly that I was doing dumbbell curls on an inclined bench in front of the mirror, and was wearing a white tank top. With every rep, I watched as my biceps rose into a high peak - not large but extremely ripped and hard-looking. My veins were bulging. As I lowered my arms with each rep, I could see the horseshoe-shaped triceps muscles bulging out making my arms look even bigger than with my biceps flexed. My chest heaved as I breathed hard in and out, the plate-like pectoral muscles clearly sticking out mor than two inches past my 27" waist, with the ripples of my 8-pack clearly visible through my wife-beater. Even though, being on an incline-bench not all of my weight was on my legs, enough weight was to make the thigh and calf muscles stick out. I could see three distinct muscle groups in the front of my thighs: The teardrop just above and to the inside of my thigh, a large sweeping muscle on the outside of each thigh and higher up, and a third (which had only become clearly visible some weeks before) in the middle, sticking out between the two. Veins ran up and down my legs, from bulging diamond-shaped calves up into my hips. My waist was so narrow, I could see the edges of the incline bench on either side of my waist in the mirror, but my shoulders flared out so much that each one overhung the sides of the bench by at least 5 inches. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]As I finished my set of ten reps and placed the 40 pound dumbbells on the floor, looking with pleasure and pride at my strong young body, I saw in the mirror the face of a younger boy, maybe 11 or 12 years old, standing in the doorway of the weightroom. He was staring at me working out. Suddenly, he realized that I saw that he was looking at me and a deep red blush appeared on his face as he turned and walked rather fast down the hallway. At that moment, my memory of a terrifying day over 3 years earlier came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. I stood up and quickly walked out of the weight room and saw the boy at the other end of the hall. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I shouted: "Hey Kid! Hold up!" He stopped like he had run right into a brick wall. As I walked towards him, I couldn't help but notice as his eyes tracked me up and down, watching my muscles bulging as I walked towards him. He seemed a bit scared, almost like he was frozen and couldn’t move. And the bulge in his shorts was obvious. I knew what that meant, that he was just like me. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"I saw you looking at me," I said. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"No I wasn't, honest. I was just looking around" he said haltingly, his blush becoming more and more pronounced, as his eyes continued to run down my body to my muscular legs, and back up again to my rippling abs, and further up to my vein-covered arms, still pumped and bulging from my workout. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"Don't worry. It's cool." He seemed to relax a tiny bit, and he took a breath. "You into muscles?" I asked. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"Yeah," he replied. "Yours look so cool!" [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]I knew then what I had to do. "Well, you can't use the weight room 'til you're 14 you know." [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"Yeah" he replied, with a deep, regretful sigh. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]"But there's stuff you can do right now, to get ready for when you turn 14. You want some help starting a routine?" [/COLOR]

[COLOR=cyan]----------------------------------- [/COLOR]
[COLOR=cyan]The End.[/COLOR]

[funboy]

Very cool. Hope to see the story develop - take all the time you need, no pressure. I will watch for more instalments of this one for sure.

[TheMM]

The end?

No no no no no no no no no no no! This is just too good to end it right here and now!

If you dare to end it now I'll......uhh.....umm.....mail you a strongly worded letter!

[muscle16a]

Funboy:

Thank you for the comment. And I don't mean to disappoint, but that won't happen. My stories are all self-contained quantities. I write them intentionally with a beginning, a middle, and an end. As you can see in this story, the end is purposefully matched with the beginning. While I do occasionally enjoy the "neverending stories" that so many people post here, I don't write 'em like that.

On the other hand, if anybody wishes to jump in and continue a story that I have begun, they should feel free to do so. So long as I am credited as appropriate.

[arpeejay]

NICE story! Thanks for sharing it with us and I'm sure that I speak for many others when I say I look forward to many more!

xoxo

Richard

[tagsnola]

This boy was so much more empathetic than that boy who had been his inspiration years before! Great, vivid description!
Thanks!
- TagsNOLA

[MAZIVKAROLY]

Truly winsome and wonderful ! Sensitively and nicely detailed descriptions. A lot of talent that is very well evidenced here.

[GlitzPianoman]

This was a welcome change from all the supernatural and sci-fi things that I've been seeing a lot of on the Internet as of late. I'm glad you're not continuing this, too. It's definitely a self-contained tale.

Thank you for your masterful story. I'd love to see more like this here.

[TheMM]

Originally Posted by muscle16a

Thank you for the comment. And I don't mean to disappoint, but that won't happen. My stories are all self-contained quantities. I don't post 'em till they're complete and finished. I write them intentionally with a beginning, a middle, and an end. As you can see in this story, the end is purposefully matched with the beginning. While I do occasionally enjoy the "neverending stories" that so many people post here, I don't write 'em like that.

Fair enough, nothing against trying, eh? Perhaps threatening to send you a letter wasn't enough (this letter to be exact*: http://www.into.ie/ROI/Interactive/C...ad,1320,en.gif).

*Sometimes I just make pretty crummy jokes, don't I?

[bulkinupbig]

muscle16a,
Congratulations on conceiving and writing a terrific story.
Finally, a muscle growth story that doesn't have a magic potion or pill, but hard work, determination and consistency in training as the basis for growth.
Best of all, the protagonist is someone who is willing to share the dream with others.

Very similar experience, I had to wait until graduating high school to begin training at a hard core gym. Your story rang true.
Thanks, bulkinupbig

[philat99]

Very enjoyable reminiscence.
Mike