Adam Crum

 Almost four years ago when I was a Marine stationed in San Diego and only 23 years old, I was very outgoing and loved to have fun. But I wasn’t very confidence. In fact, to this day I still attribute the marriage to my wife I met there to pure dumb luck and being in the right place at the right time. I had never been one to just talk to somebody that I didn’t work with or know through somebody else. Even though I was a Marine, I was not the atypical "Jar-Head", and only did some physical training when I knew a PFT (Physical Fitness Test) was coming up.

Since I have been out, I hadn’t done much besides work long hours and get home for just long enough to eat and sleep. With marriage and children, my outgoing-ness had decreased to just one other married couple that we would hang out with at our house and play Rock Band. I had no desire for physical activity, nor was the idea of friend making appealing to me. On the outside, I was cool with that, but internally I was ashamed at how I had let myself slip so far away from the person I was and appaled at my lack of motivation to do anything.

As the cards were dealt during  the financially rocky times of late 08 into 09, the company that I was working for let me go. I was actually glad, since after all the furlough days, pay cuts, benefits dropped, I was actually able to make more on unemployment and have my wife qualify for state medical benefits to help with the birth of our second child. The following months were not to bad as my wife is a coupon queen and I had the chance now to re-evaluate my career path and work on some personal and educational goals. But after six months of no return phone calls, no interviews, and not  even an internship, I made a big decision that changed my life as I knew it.

I decided I should re-enlist. Not just for my family to be able to survive, but for me to really become the Alpha Male that I knew I should, and could be. While the Marines couldn’t take me back as fast as I wanted because of new tattoo policies, the Army would, but there were a few problems. I was technically over the weight standards and needed to drop a few pounds. Well, twenty five pounds to be exact. As soon as I realized what I needed to do, my butt was at 24 Hour Fitness and there daily for up to three hours at a time. I would sometimes hit it up twice a day, or hit back to back group classes burning anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 calories while I was there. I was at it, and at it hard.

Needless to say, I met my goals in the time the recruiters asked of me, and I was able to sign my new contract. With that said and done, I picked my family up and we moved in with the in-laws to save money before I ship out (that circus is a whole other blog… or three). While I could have just kept eating properly and avoided sitting on my rear all day in order to stay in my weight class, something had already sparked a flame inside me that made me want more.  I was already gaining muscle and losing fat, but with the job I would be undertaking I would need to be more physical. So I kept going to the gym and kept lifting weights.

Each week my weights got heavier, my stamina was longer and more vigorous, and the wonder of biceps started happening. I liked it. A lot. Besides a desire to lift weights and get stronger, something else happened to me. I was going up to people in the gym… and talking to them. I would ask others for tips or questions on how to do a certain move. A request to a stranger for "a spot" was not a embarrassing to me. From time to time, I would give advice to a younger guy who looked lost. I wasn’t until this very afternoon that I was struggling with 60 lb dumbbells on an incline chest press, when I asked "some guy" on the Smith Machine to spot me on the first rep and continued to finish my work out with him, that I realized I had evolved past the Marine I was.

Besides "bigger guns" and pulling off a half ton leg press, Body Building has given me something I never knew I had in more, nor thought I would ever have. Confidence. The iron I lift, the sweat that I pour, and sometimes the blood that I shed, has given me more than a boost. To say a boost would imply that I was confidence before I began my fit life. Body building gave me confidence. I am blessed to be in an age where it is more accepted and have the forum to speak with others about it. Websites like BodyBuilding.com and thier BodySpace community, and blogs from individuals like myself have given me a voice in a family I never thought twice about before.

Without this sport and lifestyle, I couldn’t say where I would be today, or if I would have courage to leave my family in less than two weeks to go to the Army. I hope that if you are reading this and still on the fence about the whether or not body building is something you can handle, that my words ring true in your heart. Any road less traveled will be rough and rocky, but the benefits you will reap physically and mentally will be a sweet and well earned reward.