before and after

James35 · #1 August 22nd, 2004, 02:56 PM

Hey guys, I finally found the old "before" pic I have been searching for. For those of you that missed it, I told my story in the 'unusual compliments' thread. Just as I was making some real progress in my training two years ago, I had surgery on my shoulder. Unable to do any upper body training for a couple of months, I was down to 178 lbs in October of 2002. Although I was in good condition and pretty lean, I was disappointed that just as I started to get some size (185-190 lbs) I dropped back. So here?s a pic of me a couple of months after the surgery at 178 lbs and a repost of the one of me from last June at 216 (I'm 5"11").
It was about April or May of last year that I started to get some comments on my size. I was talking to a guy I work with about my workouts and my muscle gains and he actually reached out and poked my pec. He was impressed with the firmness of it. Then, about a few weeks later, he was at lunch with me and a few other guys, including one whom had left the company and we had not seen in about 6 months. The one that had not seen me in a while made a comment about the size of my biceps and the coworker said something like ?Forget the arms, you should feel his chest!?
Talk about a great lunch!
Part of the reason I post these is to show that you can overcome injuries; even ones that require surgery, to become better than you were before. And, you can also still gain muscle even if you?re not in your twenties anymore.
NOTE: I was not able to re-post the 'after' pic since it is still in the other thread. I received an error message when I tried to upload the pic, even if I changed the file name. Moderator - can you move the James_June04 pic to this thread? Thanks.

omelissokomos · #2 August 22nd, 2004, 06:41 PM

My frickin' jaw just hit the floor when I put your October 2002 and June 2004 pics side by side.

All I can say is, "WOW!"

dirk steel · #3 August 22nd, 2004, 10:50 PM

If you have an after photo that matches the pose of the before shot, I can create a morph movie from one to the other. That would be sweet.

brent · #4 August 23rd, 2004, 01:06 AM

You have obviously done a LOT of work. Here is a before & after:

Notbigenuff · #5 August 23rd, 2004, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brent

You have obviously done a LOT of work...

Oh my yes! And what good work you do.

Keep it up!

brent · #6 August 23rd, 2004, 08:23 AM

Hey, I forgot that I was going to put a link to where the other pic is, which is here. You have totally transformed yourself, and I think that's wonderful!

Thank you for sharing. I hope it helps guys here realize that we all started skinny. I think I'll look for an old skinny pic later.

Brent.

ottomun6 · #7 August 23rd, 2004, 08:01 PM

D-a-a-y-u-m!

(pardon my french)

optimusx · #8 August 26th, 2004, 12:28 PM

Awesome change and even more awesome story about the lunch encounters.

You really can do anything you put your mind to. Plus age doesn't really matter. A guy that works out at the same gym as I is 50 yrs old and he placed first in the World Series Bodybuilding Competition in Canada this year for his weight range (155 lbs I think), beating out a Japanese guy that was 23 and another gentleman who was in his 30's I think. And he's been through multiple injuries. He just never gave up and worked around the problem till the problem ceased.

You're definetly on the right track

Scott