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It's a fairly simple question, have you always been into sports/working out or is it something recent for you?

An optional second question, if you picked it up later in life what kind of body type were you before you became athletic?

Always -

Sports and the outdoors were my life as a little kid, then in Junior High and High school I triple lettered, went on to play in College...

After college that turned to more individualized sports like Karate, swimming, and volleyball, etc

Just have always been very sports oriented...

I've pretty much always been athletic...though my dad took more interest in my brother's sporting events than in mine for some reason.

we mostly played the same sports, but he went to all their games and track meets and didnt much go to mine. To be fair, he was working more when I played, but him not going to my games made us not really practice together on weekends, either. He did play with my brothers on the weekends, and I always thought they were better at sports than me because of it.

even though my brothers are better than me, I can still kick YOUR ass in most sports...

Hmmm. I wouldn't say I was always athletic. I was more like physically active.

I had never considered playing sports. I was averagely fit and skinny and looked brainy in highschool and I'd never thought of participating in any sports until my gym coach saw me running afterschool to catch my bus home. He asked my twin bro if I played any sports and the next day I was in his office.

I then started doing track and field, soccer, and swimming thanks to my twin, who played football and basketball. I

Yes and no. Now-a-days I feel I am (I bike, lift, play ball, etc.).
Growing up not so much. Although, I used to go to afterhours when I was in HS and dance all night. Does that count?

Yes. I have always been athletic. Soccer, Gymnastics, Basketball, I bought one of those old school ab crunchers (the one that looks like a pogo stick and used elastic bands) from an informercial when I was 7 years old.

No..absolutely NOT....since my mother made me play baseball at a very early age and I hated it. I was that guy in right field counting the flowers...I played well except for throwing, batting and catching...oh well. Now I love to watch it...still feel insure playing. Never was a jock, now I love the gym. I'm seeing changes in my body like I've never seen before. I grew up lean and never needing to worry about what I ate, not so at 50... what a difference. I'm determined to be able to create a new me....tighter shirts and a proud body!

I started working out in 1995, at age 21. After seeing photos of my very fat self when I didn't know I was being photographed.

I started running, then weights.

A few years into it came yoga. Then pilates. (Both before they were HOT.)

With weights, yes.

I've always been the althetic one in the family. Everyone else is overweight. Somehow I came out with all the energy. Even my dad has DD breasts.

Since I was about 6, I recall playing soccer, basketball and running alot. Didn't do much in high school because my parents couldn't drive me to the events or practice. After high school, I've been on and off about lifting because of work... but do alot of cycling(on and off-road) in the summmertime. If I had learned how to swim I'd probably be a triathle now.

I was a complete dweeb/geek (no comments, those of you who know me) all the way through college. Then I took up running, and found out I was awfully good at that. But, I think I may be in the best shape of my life now. I am still running a lot, and the weight training is providing counter-training, balance, and helping out my vanity a bit.

However, those of you who can dribble a basketball, hit a baseball, etc. can still kick sand in my face.

John

athletic - yes
coordinated - no
competitive - yes

Played all the damn "coordinated sports" like football, basketball, baseball...and after some confidence got to be pretty good...although I still fear that I "throw like a girl"...so I wont kick sand

workout wise...I am in my 22nd year of being a runner and now in my 20th year of lifting weights...so it's a lifestyle now...although I put on 25 lbs after college...my body has stayed basically the same shape...

- David

Let me make a visual comparison to answer this question.



So much less of a fatty now than even a few years ago.

I've been athletic all my life. I've played almost any sport there is - and was taught to swim when I was five. I've lifted weights since high school, and played H20-polo since then too. Tennis, cycling, running, soccer, hiking, basketball, football, baseball, hockey - I've done all of these - but sucked at some of them too!

Nope. Asthmatic kid here. Still am not. But I'm easing into it. So be kind with us noobs.

I hope I get to have comparison pics like Chewey's someday. LOL

I have always been athletic. I played all the major seasonal sports growing up. (to be fair though, I only played street hockey, not ice hockey!). I was not able to compete legally in my school's organized sports because I had a heart murmur and at the that time most doctors would not approve of me playing contact sports. I always ended up in recreational leagues though.

Definitely not. When I was a little kid I'd invite my most athletic friends to my birthday party with the result that I'd do the worst in all the games that were played. In grade school and junior HS I'd almost always be the second to last to be picked for a team (a friend with Tourette's Syndrome was usually the last). About the same time I developed asthma (and in the 50's there weren't the medications that are available now), so by then I had pretty much dropped out of playing competitive games.

My father and I shared a lake cabin (northern MN) with some friends that we'd spend each weekend at during the short summers. One weekend he presented me with a pair of water skiis that he had bought. I refused to try skiing, so he got my friend from the neighboring cabin to try it. He was successful, so I decided to give it a try. The lake had quite a bit of lakeshore (~100 miles) with lots of cabins, but this was the early 50's, and there was only one other family on the whole lake who water skied (we had a 9.2 hp Evenrude outboard on a 14 ft wood boat--the largest motor available at the time was a 25 hp Mercury--and I never saw one on the water).

Anyhow, I got hooked on water skiing because there was almost nobody else around that I could be compared to. Did the whole bit...built a jump, laid out a slalom course, built my own skiis, joined the AWSA and started competing in tournaments, hooking up with some other competitors so I could continue practicing when I came out to the west coast for college, etc..

My father did lots of things for me, but in retrospect his getting those water skiis and then spending years of weekends driving the boat while I'd practice is probably one of the best.

I was always athletic. I started playing sports around age 6-7 and played straight up into high school. Injury and other circumstances forced me to stop participating in organized sports, but I still remained active.

I was that kid in school who LOVED gym class. It was one of my favorite times of the day.

I've never been able to throw or catch a ball to save my life. It has to do with some kind of alignment problem between my eyes, doesn't affect me otherwise. This has resulted in a very negative life experience when it comes to the organized team sports that the American male is expected to embrace (could be the subject of a whole new discussion).

Instead, as a kid I got into individual sports and/or team sports that don't involve moving balls around a field (not counting those attached to the players): gymnastics, swimming, running, rowing and cycling. These interests have continued through my adult life.

My (lean) body type has been more or less the same all the way through.

I can't believe I'm about to answer this question!

I was in the following sports in my youth:

--> figure skating (ages 7-11)
--> Tae Kwon Do (made it to black belt at 13)
--> tee ball (one season only when I was 9)
--> swimming (all through high school and college)

but I was still a geek and had the stick figure arms and legs.

Are you kidding me I was always a klutz , hopeless at sports, but loved them anyways! I started working out in earnest last April to lose weight and increase my endorphins.

I worked out in my 20's and 30's about 2-3 times a week but was not nearly as motivated as I am now.

Since I could remember I've always been athletic and played sports as well as active. When I was younger I played Tee-ball, then baseball all the way through High School. Also played Pop Warner Football as a youth then all the way through High School as well. I also remember constantly being on my BMX bike riding ALL over the neighborhood when I was young as well as well as we would make bike tracks in the canyons behind our house. I would also spend my youth hiking and camping for as long as I could remember. I did slow down a bit in College due to working AND attending college, but I didn't start hitting the gym hard until about my mid-late 20's.

Sports were always a challenge for me. I struggled to find one that I loved and was good at.

Soccer, Baseball, Wrestling, Diving, Gymnastics, Track, cross country...Then came the passion of my life, Swimming

Swimming - started at 5 yo. I became pretty good at it and then started training with a local high school in addition to my YMCA team. I surprisingly won my first state championships at 12 and qualified for Y nationals at 13. I was lucky to swim aside of future olympians and olympic coaches. I swam at swim camps and coached in my summers and eventually went to boarding school, repeating my sophomore year to be able to swim another year. My high schools were former national championships and I found myslef competeing at a national level. But triple practices and never seeing my family got to me. I burned out in college and have been dying to get back into competiton mode ever since.

Nooooooooooooooo. Definitely not.

Played sports throughout jr high and high school and was pretty good, but never considered myself athletic. My classmates didn't either...even though by the time I graduated I had 7 athletic letters. I was known as the art and music guy since I was very good at those (and still am). Hated sports, actually, because of all the taunting and gay-bashing names.

Played intramural sports in college to be social, but was never the star. Again, never got the chance because nobody saw me that way no matter how well I did on the field.

Then I started playing flag football with the gay group out here in LA. Suddenly playing gay football made me a jock. Go figure. Now I love sports and a lot of the gay guys I work with refer to me as the "jock sports dude guy".

Funny: When I was in the closet, I hated sports and no one saw me as athletic. I came out, and suddenly sports were fun and I'm an early pic in team selections. I should have come out sooner than I did.

Happy V-day, y'all.

God no. Remember that President's Fitness Whatever thing we had to do in junior high? I was the only kid in my class that couldn't climb the rope at the end. Eeesh. I was 4'6" and weighed 85 pounds, I remember that from the test...

jarhead5536 saidGod no. Remember that President's Fitness Whatever thing we had to do in junior high? I was the only kid in my class that couldn't climb the rope at the end. Eeesh. I was 4'6" and weighed 85 pounds, I remember that from the test...

I think I had to do the same test! I might have gotten half way up it. I was always the smallest kid in my class until Grade 8 when I started going through puberty.

There are some athletic things I still cannot do like a cartwheel, can't get my head around it.

Phys. Ed. to me was humiliating. Funny thing is in classes like Geography or History in which I excelled, they would not hand out test scores based on marks, they did not want to embarras anyone. In Phys. Ed. nobody seemed to have that issue, they allowed the jocks to pick out their teammates, and I was always one of the last. Talking about a double-standard!

Growing up, the coaches at my old school already had their favorite students and I wasn't really considered athletic. I did run track, but I wasn't the best and I tried. The coaches, however, weren't encouraging at all. (When you grow up in a town of 702 people, you have the same PE coach in 8th grade as you did in Kindergarten.)

College, my sophomore year is when things changed. I took weightlifting class (and stuck w/ it ever since), goofed off in touch football a bit (and surprised myself that I'm fast!).

Now, I bicycle everywhere, I'm boxing four times a week, I'm lifting 5 to 6 times a week and I picked up running too. It's supplementing the time I use to go to the bars since that bores me to tears now.

I'm actually in the best health at 30 than ever was in my teens and early 20s.

Before I was athletic I was active. I've always liked to be doing things. It runs in the family.

Sports: Soccer, Swimming, Diving, Gymnastics, Aikido, Kickboxing, Volleyball, Tennis, Frisbee

Active: Hiking, Backpacking, Canoing, Kayaking, Sailing, Running (poorly)

And just about anything you'll show me how to do. Stuff is fun to do.

yes indeed.

i have surfed since i was a lil' tot.

wrassled/grappled/boxed since i was a lil' tot because i have 2 older, bigger bros who used me as a heavy bag. (the thing that sucks is that they are still bigger than me at 6'3", 6'4". i am still the runt and they let me have it whenever they can. of course they gang up on me.)

In my younger years I was very active. Did baseball, swimming, bikeing, little bit of hikeing, loooooong walks, basically alot of running around. Dont know when or why I became less active but definatly regret it. Changing that around now though.

pretty much.
mum made sure i knew how to swim, since we had a pool. gymnastics at the Y, and surf camp, volleyball camp.
competitive roller skate for 3 yrs.
then competitive junior tennis from age 13 up, college tennis and pro.
now triathlon for 18 years, all american several times over the years. swimming meets and running races for training.
it's a lifestyle for sure!

Yes, I have always been athletic.

As a little one, I played baseball, basketball, and ran track for a church league. As I grew older I focused on what I was best at which was basketball. Growing up a farm boy- dirtbikes and horses became a new passion in my late teens. I still play in basketball leagues when asked by someone from time to time. I will admit that I have lost some of my coordination over the years. Mostly lost due to not playing regularly.

I was a total non-athletic geek until well after college. When I first started going to the gym, I was only 155 lbs and you could wrap your hand around most of my bicep (and I'm 6'3" so you can imagine how skinny that was!). Now I'm 206 lbs with 17.5" arms, but it took a hell of a lot of work to get there, and I still have a lot to go to get where I want to with my build.

Nope, and I'm still strugling to catch up... Trying realy hard though.

Yep. I just didn't know it.

"Physically active" is how I'd put it. Thankfully I haven't change body size like most guys in my class. This was from 15 years ago or so...

I just go dancing in clubs more

NO! Even though I played baseball as a kid, HS Football, and many Intramural/fraternity teams of softball, golf, vollyball and basketball in college, I got into biking and powerlifting out of college, but I was never a "jock" or even remotely "athletic". It is a "later in life" event for me and corresponds to my weight loss surgery. Now, I NEED my activities and really enjoy running, biking, lifting, hiking, etc. Not into playing "organized" sports...sort of a loner.

I pretty much sucked in every sport I ever tried. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. When I was 8 years old I became a gymnast and I rocked it! I competed in that until I was 15 years old and then had a really bad accident and was physically unable to practice for a couple of years. I have wanted to get back into it ever since and I made it a goal of mine for this year to get back into gymnastics.

active yeah, as a kid i was always roaming the fields around my house, playing, running and reeking havoc.

athletic no, i tried playing sports when i was young but i was horrible, i was the kid picked last every time at recess.

competitive - always, being that i was horrible at sports i became competitive at school. BrainQuest school and district champion, state finals qualifier as a 4th grader. I liked being "smart"

Middle school really took my competitive nature and focused it on sports, 7th grade made the basketball team but because i was tall and could jump. wasn't the fastest or anything on the team. i trained like hell and by the time i graduated high school i had lettered three years in track (actually accumulated enough points to have lettered 8 times) and lettered once in soccer (helped found the mens soccer team my junior year, school board forced us JV the first year so no chance at lettering).

Now i see something and work my ass off to be good at it. I'm usually no very good at first and have to dedicate hours of self training to become good, but i don't stop until i feel i'm good enough

Kind of! When I was really young my favorite thing to do was go run on the track and play any sport that was available to me.
I then picked up boxing and it lasted till the end of my 8th grade year. In high school, I didn't have much time for sports, but I did play basketball. I've gotten back into more stuff now.

i was a gymnast, turned soccerplayer, turned track runner, skiier, swimmer

I'd go with yes.

Sports I played for various schools/teams: Soccer, Softball, Track, Volleyball, Tennis, Cross Country (at which I was admittedly awful), Swimming, Wrestling, Fencing

Sports I played only recreationally: Frisbee, Racquetball, Rockclimbing

And that leaves out things like hiking, which I just can't bring myself to classify as a sport. Working with weights is much newer, and makes me look like less of a nerd than I used to (doesn't actually make me less of a nerd, just not as scrawny as I was), but I was always fairly coordinated and was typically the fastest sprinter/mid distance runner in my grade.