Marcus Krieg
My name is Marcus and I currently reside in Phoenix, AZ. I am 24 years old, but in spite of my age I have experienced many up and down cycles in my fitness over the years. I have experienced multiple chronic injuries, some of which I'm still working through, in addition to the overall state of apathy that follows a significant injury.
Currently, I am trying to get myself into the best shape of my life through research, discipline, and goal-setting, all of which comprise the purpose of this fitness blog. During my peaks, I had athletic honors placed upon me, such as running all-conference in the 800m dash in high school and rowing stroke seat for the University of Oregon's rowing (crew) team. When I'm healthy, I have a tendency to overachieve and push past my physical limits, which is why first with running and then with rowing I sustained significant chronic injuries to my feet, back, and shoulders.
After hurting my feet in high school, I was depressed about not being able to run anymore and went through two separate bouts of physical therapy with cortisone injections and custom orthotics. Pretty much everything that I was told to do I did and they weren't responding to the treatment. While it was depressing giving up the sport I loved, I did find crew as a result and started focusing more on muscle development and strength, which I think has been a healthy change for me. Competition is one of my triggers and has led to overtraining and injury. That said, I will be working on trying to rehab my feet because it's important to me and if you're facing a similar struggle I'd love to hear from you about what has worked and what hasn't.
When running was taken off the table, I needed a new challenge and picked up rowing in college. It feels more like the 800m than anything else I've ever done, but it's full-body and can actually increase muscle development, something I was sorely lacking as a mid-distance runner who was always weight-conscious. Unfortunately, as with running, I started training too hard at one thing and failed to keep my body in balance, which resulted in chronic shoulder problems that I continue to struggle with today. This will be another of the story threads that will come up frequently as injury-proofing my shoulders is going to be incredibly important for reaching my fitness goals.
My idiocy over the years has not always been sport-centric; I've also done silly things just trying to build muscle and look good. When my shoulders got hurt, I started weightlifting more frequently and focused quite heavily on my legs and core, being as my shoulders were limited by injury. It all started out great until I strained my back by doing excessive volume of squats and dead lift with poor form.
With my beat-down 22 year-old body, coupled with graduating from college and entering the work force, I let my body go and became mostly apathetic about fitness and my appearance in general. My priorities shifted wildly and I paid the price. When I was done rowing, I weighed a fit 190 pounds. By January of 2012, I weight 230 and was sitting at 26% body fat. My blood pressure was high for someone my age, in addition to my LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Almost all of my flexibility was gone and the "rest" had done nothing to heal my chronic injuries. I needed to change my lifestyle.
What I did was add structure and accountability to get started. I joined LA Fitness so that I could work out with my friend Chris Cottrell, who had similar fitness goals. We started with some basic lifts to build up some strength and get our muscles used to lifting again. Nothing will kill your motivation like being sore for 7 days after your first lifting session. So we started slow for a couple of months before starting our first designed workout, MusclePharm's Live Shredded 12-week program, which I strongly recommend. After the first three months, my body fat was down to 19.6% and I'd only lost 8lbs, which if you do the math means I built muscle while dropping several pounds of fat.
With such great results, we decided to switch over to MusclePharm's other workout program, a 16-week bodybuilding program called Get Swole. I'm currently in my last two weeks on that program and have found that I have stopped losing body fat at the same rate, but my muscles have grown significantly during that time. I also recommend this program.
As I start this blog, my goal is to chronicle my journey back to "beast status" while working on issues such as injury rehabilitation, muscle development, diet, and overall fitness. I hope to be back into "competition shape" inside 6 months.
I suppose it's wise to mention here that while I'm well-read and will be doing copious amounts of research throughout this journey, that I am not a certified trainer and while I may offer advice or present research, do check with your doctor before embarking on any training program. I am going to be working towards my personal fitness goals, but I certainly hope that I can help inspire you on your own journey into "beast mode."
You can contact me on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter and my information for each is below.
Google+: https://plus.google.com/111322326379601232001/posts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mkrieg88
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarcusKrieg
