balling out my gourd

 

Coming up as a wee lad, my general fitness was, how do you say, a sporadic shitshow.

When I was in the early grades of elementary school, I was a really skinny kid who did a lot of outdoor activities. It was the one time in my life where I was consistently tan (and yes, I can tan (thank you Cuba)), and I played a few sports.

getting humbled was a canon event

My first athletic pursuit was basketball. I played in one of the i9 Sports leagues, and I only did it once, seeing as I had NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO PLAY.

I have a very vivid memory of my team's coach explaining to us the five positions: Point Guard (PG), Shooting Guard (SG), Small Forward (SF), Power Forward (PF), and Center (C). I remember this very clearly because it was one of the first times in my life where I've thought "What is bro yapping about". I don't think I made a single point my whole run with that team, because for some reason nobody ever thought to tell me how to actually shoot the ball. I can recall only one other moment from that experience, which is walking to the car in tears because I sucked ASSSSSSS and only passed it to our one good player.

Fun times.

After I quit basketball, my parents started having me do a different sport; football. For those of you who don't know, a funny little thing about i9 Sports is that the coaches are all parents. And my dad, being a man who loves football, ended up as my coach for the vast majority of teams I played on.

I don't think it's anywhere near an exaggeration to say that the only reason I had the position I did, Quarterback, was because of pure nepotism.

There were only two cases where I wasn't the QB. The first time was when my cousin Dominic joined the team. Now that man could throw. He was a much better QB than me, and was also faster and stronger, so I really just took the L on that one. Unfortunately for him, he was born a Cuban man, an ethnic group upon which God has placed a height limit of 5'10", so I don't think he plays football anymore.

The other time was when a FREAK OF NATURE joined our team. I don't know what the hell they fed that kid, but it must've been straight horse steroids and tren. I think he was like a year or so older than me, but DAMN that boy was tall. He was really good at catching and running too, so when I cried to my dad about being taken off QB he still had something to do. I don't remember that guy's name at all, but I would not be shocked to find out he's gone D1 or pro by now.

My football days were longer than those of basketball, but were still pretty short-lived. I hated football (and still do, what a fucking boring-ass-boof-ass excuse of a sport) and getting up early every Saturday was miserable.

Even though I hated it, I think I would have stuck with sports if it weren't for one thing: Roblox.

The Downfall

Around first grade, my best friend at the time (who is a punk ass b-word but that's a story for another time) introduced me to video games, and I think it'd be fair to say that the trajectory of my life went straight downhill since then. I would spend an ungodly amount of time online everyday playing games, spending so much time on my computer that I can't really play games for fun nowadays, because after a while I just feel like I'm wasting my life.

Elementary

So that was my main motivator to quit sports. And over the next few years, I started gaining a lot more weight. I don't really know if I was overweight or something like that, but over time
, especially around middle school, the shape of my body became a point of self-hatred for me, and sometimes I'd hurt myself out of frustration. For most of my life at this point, I was a really skinny kid, and growing up we're taught that being as skinny as possible is the ultimate goal of health and beauty, so seeing my body change rapidly was a lot for me.

But anywho! I had a friend at the time who was also a bit chubby going into middle school, but over the summer completely 180'ed and became much leaner. It was through him that I first became familiar with the idea of working out. He used this app, I believe it was called 30 Day Fitness Challenge or something like that, and seeing how well it worked for him, I went ahead and downloaded it.

Middle

I made that shit like a 5-day fitness challenge. After the first rest day it gave me, I completely forgot about it, and spent the next two years of middle school occasionally re-downloading it, maybe keeping up for a few days, maybe even a week if I was really committed. But it just never stuck.

Halfway through eighth grade, I switched from Nova Middle School (the public one, I did not go to that fuckass private school) to Florida Virtual School. Funny coinkydink, I switched to FLVS like two months before every school in the country went online because of COVID. Hooray!

To say that COVID was a very odd time in my life would be an understatement, but also it was like that for everyone so I'm really just preaching to the choir. But in terms of my physical appearance, boy oh boy did that completely change. I'm not sure if I dropped a lot of weight so much as I just started going through puberty, but at any rate I was a lot thinner and started feeling better about my health. I would like to now make the point that I realize skinny does not equal healthy nor attractive, but at the time that was how I saw it for myself.

Anyways, I spent the first few months of quarantine at home, slowly slimming down, until around the start of high school I looked like a shitty Pokemon evolution of myself.

About halfway through the school year, I started taking Taekwondo classes at a place near my house (I was still living in Tamarac at the time), and this was really my first taste of a fitness journey. I would go to class about four times a week, and I would genuinely tweak out on days where I couldn't go, so after a while I started working out at home. By working out, I really just mean core exercises. It was a really bad fitness regiment, but it paid off; I had relatively strong abdominal muscles for years. They weren't prominent, but they were definitely there!

I kept doing Taekwondo until the end of June. Firstly, the people at the studio started getting pretty lax with their masks. There was also a girl named Angel who would kick the living shit out of everyone, even if you were told to make light contact. Thankfully for me, I am apparently very bony and hurt to make physical contact with, so after a while she threw softer kicks. But my breaking point at this studio was when they started re-hiring staff. Up until this point, it had just been Master Anthony teaching classes, but then they brought back this other guy to help out, and oh my GODDDD he was a fucking prick. I only had him once, but it was enough for me. He was so strict and uptight, and when Angel and I were sparring, he got on my ass multiple times for making too much contact. Mind you, I'M FIGHTING FOR MY FUCKING LIFE AGAINST THIS BOOTLEG AMAZON WHO'S TRYING TO CRACK MY STERNUM.

So yeah, I quit.

But while I stopped doing Taekwondo, I actually managed to stick with my workouts. At least, until I started going to school in-person again. That shit really curb-stomped my energy. I didn't really do much in regards to physical activity for the rest of high school, except for a brief stint at a new Taekwondo place in Weston. After a while, though, I was kinda sick of it, and was really only going because there was a girl I thought was pretty, and that's not worth spending a monthly fee on.

Again, not much else happened for the rest of high school. I did a little workout here and there, got some pumps, some gains, you know how it is. But now we reach the reason I wrote this post.

Imagine I also put the peter griffin basketball image here

I love basketball. I really don't know where it came from; if you remember my earlier days in this sport, me and the ball had beef.

There wasn't any specific moment that got me into basketball, but little things over the course of months. In junior year of high school, I was out at a pizza place (called Sicilian Oven, highly recommend) with my dad, and they were playing the Eastern Conference Finals of the Heat vs. Celtics. As a self-proclaimed Celtics hater, I'm glad this was what initiated me into basketball.

After that, I started getting a little bit of basketball content on my Instagram and YouTube feeds, and after engaging with them they started taking over my home page. I thought it would be another random phase, or maybe an on-and-off interest, but over the next year I just kept watching basketball videos. It wasn't like I was actually watching games, but I was watching videos about players, coaches, drama, etc.

What drove me to start actually paying attention to the regular season games was the 2024 playoffs; I was at a birthday dinner for my friend Shreya at Yard House, and straight in front of me they were playing one of the Mavericks vs. Timberwolves games. I loosely followed the rest of the playoffs, generally rooting for the Mavs, and was sorely disappointed by the Finals (I refuse to acknowledge who won). But for the rest of the summer, I kept watching basketball videos and following stuff that happened during the offseason, and when it came time for me to start at university, the basketball brainrot finally got through to me.

My GOAT Shreya

gym bro era

I moved in on August 17th, and a week later was the first time I tried playing basketball at the on-campus gym. It's become an addiction since then.

I wanted to be consistent in the gym when I started here, and the only reason I've been able to achieve that is because of basketball. It's so much fun to me, and I'm genuinely at the point where my workout regiment revolves around what I want to get better at on the court. I started going to the gym to feel better about my physical appearance, and while it's still a motivator, basketball has completely overtaken that reason.

I know a lot of people who are the "Ughhhh I need to work out" type but don't really have a goal nor idea where to start. So I, an unqualified buffoon, feel that if talking about my experience in fitness and what I've learned might help even just one person, I'd be happy with that.

So now, some advice.

STRETCH. Muscle soreness is completely manageable if you stretch the muscles you're about to activate in your exercises. When I get to the gym, the first thing I do is head to the "yoga studio" area and stretch every muscle. If I'm playing basketball, I'll start with my toes/feet (idgaf if you think it's weird, I'm not walking around with a sore big toe), then stretch my ankles in every direction, then do calves, inner thighs, and hamstrings. I spend the most time on my hamstrings, but then I move on to the hips, glutes (to any dudes reading this I promise it is not gay to stretch/work out your glutes grow up), and from there I start moving to the upper body. I'll start with the obliques and lower back (which is my favorite stretch by far), then do abs, upper back, triceps, fingers, wrists, and forearms. After that I'll do biceps and pecs, then finish with shoulders.

When you type it out it looks like a lot, but this takes me 5-10 minutes depending on how lazy I am. Is it necessary to stretch every muscle? Not necessarily. If you're just doing bicep exercises, it doesn't make much sense to stretch your glutes, but if you're playing a sport it would make sense to go more full-body. I just like to stretch everything anyways; it's a good way to wake your body up and stretching consistently is really good for your body as you age. 

You're also supposed to stretch after working out, but I am extremely lazy after I finish, so I'll just try to stretch the specific muscle groups I just worked out. I do not have the effort to do a full-body stretch again.

My next piece of advice: DIET. I say "diet" in the general sense, not just eat less to get skinny. It's important to have a reason for working out, and the diet will depend on your goals. For example, I'm currently trying to lose fat and get to 155-160 pounds (I am about 165 right now). My reason for doing this is to be more agile and quicker when I play basketball, since my physique is naturally kind of stocky.

I'm trying to eat less calories, but also I don't eat enough protein, so I'm trying to shoot for 90g/100g of protein on days I work out to maintain and develop my muscles. The hardest part of the diet is eating right; I love cooking but I hate using my dorm's communal kitchen, so I used to buy a lot of pre-made stuff. The amount of sodium in them is so high, so I cut those out of my diet and try to incorporate a lot more unprocessed shit, like zero sugar yogurt and granola (my new favorite snack). Processed carbs are like crack for me, so trying to stop eating candy and ice cream and all that is really tough. 

But hey, I'm trying! I think the most important part is making a conscious effort to eat a little bit better every day. Not everyone needs a crazy change in their diet, but listening to my body makes me feel better about myself, physically and mentally. Also, eat your vitamins!

The last thing I'd say, and unfortunately this won't be capitalized and bolded because I don't feel like it, is to have fun!

Sounds a bit corny, but like I said earlier, the only reason I go to the gym at this point is because I love basketball. It's the most fun I have at the gym, and I probably would've quit if I was still going just to "look better". My current gym schedule is wake up at 7AM to play basketball (I'd get there around 7:30), and I'll usually leave around 9:30-10:30 depending on my classes. Last semester I would finish basketball an hour early so I could spend an hour or so lifting weights, but by the end of the semester I stopped doing weight training because doing all that in the span of three hours is suicide-inducing.

So now I do basketball in the mornings and lift weights after I finish classes, generally around 6PM. I also have Ensure protein shakes that I drink as soon as I get home from the gym (anabolic window or whatever the fuck). It sounds like a lot, but I do basketball because I have fun, I stretch because I enjoy being flexible and like the long-term benefits, I try to do exercises I don't hate (FUCK RDLs), and I am working on enjoying dieting. 

2 months in jim vs. 4 months in jim

Almost been six months, need to take a progress pic soon. I think that's all I have to say in terms of my fitness journey. It was a lot of yap, but I like talking about it, though, so. Cope.