Well, I started lifting, was 125lb twig, started lifting with two of my best friends who were monsters, in hindsight I should have spend a solid 2 months just lifting with the machines, I was completely sedative before this, heaviest thing i lifted was a pound of XXXX haha. But I jumped right into everything with them, deadlifts, squats, bench the whole nine yards, my joints were not ready for this at all. Within my first 6 months I had bad chronic shoulder pain in my right shoulder. Whatever though, I put on 40lbs those first 7 months or so, played out a rugby season, 2 hours of running everday, the kind that eats muscle, after the season I had lost 15lbs or so, and a ton of strength, took the whole offseaon to gain it back, season comes again, same shit happens, lose a ton of size and strength, have to work to put that 15lbs back on again, so now ive had to add 30lbs back i already once had instead of adding new size. somewhere in there I suffer this L4-5 annular tear in my back, I can barely get of of bed these days its so bad. Ill have this one for life. after I go from 125-185 in decent condition i run my first cycle, I put on 30lbs, lose 5 when the water comes off, still im fucking estatic, going though pct and still gaining strength, im 3 months post pct holding every bit of that 30lbs sittting around 215 and I partially tear my right rotator cuff. 4 months out of the gym besdies calves, legs and some arms. Physical therapy does dick for me, I swear thats when my "good shoulder" starts to hurt. I end up losing like 15lbs, it depressed the hell out of me, so i get back in the gym, start adding some weight and strength again, forget lifting heavy as I had no chest but was strong as hell, started dropped the weights by like 25% and just focued on form, the contraction, feeling the whole rep, stayed pretty healthy injury wise doing this, but about a month after getting back in to the gym after I add some size back and I had been offf for 5 months or so I decided to run another cycle, I end up getting fucking pertiussis (whooping cough) so i can barely eat, I trained all the way through but this illness fucks with your appetite, once your body says its full if you take one more bite you throw up. idiot doctors dont know I have this they think its boncitis and keep giving me stuff for that and saying it will be better in a week, so i keep on finally after 7 times at the doctor one deciedes to test me for whooping cough, I get a call 3 weeks later, after more then 2 months of having this telling me i tested positive for pertussis. Somehow I manage to put the sizie back on I lost after that, I stay healthy for a while, all summer fall and run a really succesful fall bulker, looking to do my first show next spring/summer. Well I hire the best of the best to do my prep, first week on cycle I get broncitis, that clears up, im the unlucky fuck who gets a different strain of pertussis a second spring in a row, I knew what It was this time so i come off, keep training, eat as best I can but end up losing 22lbs in the process cause me eating the best I could was probably 1500 cals ed, and I needed close to 4000 to maintain. it lasted the full 90 days this time like they call it, the 90 day cough.

So im not giving up yet, Im down 22lbs, really needed to add another 10 befoer starting to cut for the show, that was the plan but whatever. I find another show in the fall about 4 months out and decide im gonna try and grow into the show kevin levrone style, test tren eq cycle, Just my luck I get bunk tren, Had a fun eq cycle though, added about 13 solid pounds, but there was no recomp going on like i needed, i lost a little fat but nothing like what needed to happen.

So i come off, regroup, decided im just gonna bulk for the next 17 months, start a sust deca cycle and 6 weeks in i partially tear my proximal bicep tendon, it had been hurting for a long time i just thought it was my shoulder cause it attaches at the shoulder, but no different injury to the same fucking shoulder. 10 weeks out of the gym this time and i come back and its still not 100%, maybe 60%.

So thats where ill end my story, of always fighting to come back from injuries. Sometimes i just think my bodies not cut out for this. At 160lbs I had more muscle then anyone in my familes history, gettting accused of being on steroids at 150lbs cause i put on 15lbs of muscle lol. But ill never get to where I want to be by giving up, life can keep throwing its bullshit at me, and ill keep coming back. I just wonder where id be today if i didnt have all these injuries, If i didnt have to spend all those different times putting back on 15lbs, 15lbs, 15lbs, 22lbs, being out for 3 months on two seperate occasions, etc. All that time wasted that could have been used building new muscle, id definitely be 240-250 by now. so now i have a two fucked up shoulders, a fucked up bicep tendon, a destryoed lower back, and bad kness. im in such bad shape at this age, im scared what im gonna feel like in 10 years.

Oh, and 3 weeks into this new cycle i got sick last saturday, all ive been doing is sleeping all day cant eat, to tired to do anything. Right when things were starting to get good. If i get whooping cough again im just gonna shoot myself.

I argued politics this morning with the village idiot whilst getting ready to lift at the front of the gym...Instead of ripping his head off and shitting down his throat that was my tren enhanced first thought, I instead walked back to the free weights and destroyed Bi's and Tri's... The struggle is real...

Alright kids take yourself back 1998, imagine a younger, sexier Ed. A college mother effing hero in division one basket weaving. It's a hot summer day, Ed's rolling down the road in his 5.0, with the rag top down so his hair can blow (random vanilla ice lyric) stereo is pumping to the song Keep Rollin' by limp bizkit, (whatevah bitchez it was 1998).
Young sexy Ed pulls up on this hot Latina chick in a Ford Escort. Dark brown hair, 19 years old... Her stereo is pumpin to the Backstreet boys "I want it that way".
She looks over at Ed, does a double take, rolls her passenger side window down points at me and as her song hits the summon bonum of the chorus, she points at me and lip syncs the words: "I want it that way" and looks me over like I'm an effing T-bone steak in a tiger cage.
Me, slightly embarrassed and confused, in a moment of panic turn to my only source of inspiration...Limp mother effing bizkit and kept rolling...I hit my accelerator and pull away..about 3 seconds into my launch I realize that chicka really did want it the Ed way! I look in my rear view mirror only to see her car make a left turn. Just as fast as she came into my life..poof, she was gone out of my life. I drove for about a quarter mile before I realized I need to find that chick. I flip a bitch and head back to the street where she turned off.
Frantically driving and looking all over the place I see her car at a gas station. I realize it my second chance.
Did you take that second chance Ed?
You bet your ass I did kids. I pulled into the gas station on the other side of the pump that she's pumping on. I nonchalantly plug the pump into my ride, look up over the pump and say: "Hey, do you still want it this way?"
I hear a laugh.... it's not the sweet 19 year old hot ass chicka laugh that I expected...it's a much deeper version....a man laugh. I walk over to the side of the pump and holy effing shit kids, reality kicks me right in the balls as I realize this wasn't a chick, this was a fricken tranny! He/she looks up at me and says "mmhmmmm honey wasth your name."

Shit. Worst second chance I ever took. I still get sick every time I think about it.

Moral of the story: Sometimes takin the second chance isn't always what it's cracked up to be. That and i totally shouldn't have banged her. I still get nightmares.

Hope that helps,
All my love, no homo

Ed

In 2014, lost my job...a week later my wife left me...two months later I fell on the ice a blew out my disc at L4/5, and had to have surgery. No money, no job, medical bills, no woman, no lifting...the idea of getting back in the gym was the light at the end of the tunnel. All I did was lift weights and go fishing last summer.

I'm right there with ya brother keep your head up and take one day at a time and improve one thing every day and those small things add up to one giant thing later +2