"A Muscle Gain True Story" from Fitness Expert and Personal Trainer Mike Westerdal

As a kid I was really skinny.  In fact my freshman year of highschool I weighed 120 pounds and couldn't even bench press my own weight.  Even when you stick up for yourself it seems that the smallest people always seem to be the ones that get picked on the most and have to constantly defend themselves. 

Like so many others I got myself a cheap Weider weight bench with the plastic weights and started lifting in my basement while practing my punches on a heavy bag.  Things were progressing slowly, but I was hooked on the muscle mags and reading everything I could get my hands on.

My family moved to CT my sophmore year of highschool. Not having a ton of friends I spent a lot of my time in the YMCA weight room.  In fact I probably spent way too much time there. I'm sure I was overtraining doing a full body workout 5-7 days a week, but as a beginner I was still making gains.  I had to gain weight so I wouldn't get pushed around the football as defensive back, so I kept at it. By my senior year of highschool I weighed 185 pounds and benched 275. Nothing amazing, but it was a huge improvement for me. 

My lifting workout had been improving the more I read, I was eating as much as I could and training a lot smarter.  I still wasn't training the right way to add serious muscle but I was doing alright. After high school I walked onto a D-IAA football team and became a starter by my Junior year. 

The summer of my sophmore year I figured out with the help of one of the team captains that you get stronger and put on size by doing heavy compound movements for low reps. When I dropped my reps and increased the weight my bench sored from a 315 to 400+ in a matter of a year. I knew I was onto something and started documenting all my workouts and those of my teammates that were using the same system.  As one of the stronger benchers on the team, I constantly had people asking me how they could up their max. 

At the same time I was getting interested in computers and decided to start a Web site as a hobby to answer the questions and help where I could.  That's how the Critical Bench Program originally started although it has changed over the years. After college I tried the 9-5 desk job stuff and couldn't take the rat race.

I'd rather be free and make less money than sit in a cubicle and stare out the window like a prisoner.  I'm not dissing those that do this, I just didn't want to hack it. I quit my job and went to Europe to play some more football. After an ACL tear I came back to the US, got certified as a personal trainer and trained clients for a few years while I continued to grow my Web site. 

Although I love training people, I felt that I could reach more people through the Internet and felt that my time would be better spent reaching the masses.  Now I run CriticalBench.com full-time as an online weight lifting resource with thousands of informational pages.

Currently I'm living in the Tampa Bay area with my soon to be wife Courtney. I'm training at an awesome gym called Tampa Barbell with a group of powerlifters.  I have a few bench competitions under my belt and I'm striving to improve my bench with the real experts.  It's amazing.  I thought I was strong on the football field, but when you hang out with a group of powerlifters it sure puts you in your place.  I'm ready to work my way up, and learn from others that share my same passion.

In life and in training I feel very strongly that positive thinking and surrounding yourself with successfull people is so important.  Anything is possible as long as you open your mind to it and believe it.  It sounds like such a cliche, but you can sit and complain about what's wrong with your life or you can do something about it.  If you want something, go get it.  You can do it!  I feel blessed that I am able to live life the way I chose.  This is my story and I'm sticking to it.  Keep training hard and God Bless You!  Mike Westerdal

You can look at Mike's Critical Bench Program at www.criticalbench.com