A
Adam had a pretty simple childhood. Did well in school, had an older brother, loving parents, lots of friends. However, something always seemed to allude him. Throughout his entire life, we was always the skinny kid. Always being called “Slenderman”, “Stick”, or get told he “would blow away in the wind if the gust was too strong”. By his sophomore year in high school, Adam had gotten used to the constant ridicule that came along with his thin stature. At 5’11” and 125 pounds, he was easily the smallest kid in school. Once senior year finally came around, there still wasn’t any significant change in Adam’s physique. He tried for years listening to all of the programs, watching all of the videos, but he just couldn’t seem to gain any visible results.
That last summer before college, Adam was outside mowing the lawn when his older brother Seth’s friends ran by and were laughing at how tiny his arms looked in the cut-off T-Shirt that he was wearing. They looked like toothpicks with an elbow. Seth from inside overheard his friends and ran out to stand up for his younger brother.
Seth was only two years older than Adam and was definitely the athlete in the family. He was on Varsity Football and Wrestling as a sophomore in high school and had a bright future in sports after college. Seth had worked out every day and it definitely showed. He was 6’3” and 200 pounds of solid muscle. His arms didn’t even need to be lifting anything to be completely snaked with veins. His shoulders and traps always jutted out of every T-Shirt that he wore and he often turned heads when his bulging round pecs would be basically popping out of his shirt. His entire frame was packed with muscle and any man that looked at him was instantly intimidated. It wasn’t often they saw someone that young with such strong proportions. He was definitely the strongest one in the family by a long shot, but he always stayed humble. Seth had tried for years to help Adam gain size, but no matter what program they tried, it never yielded any results.
“Hey guys, just get out of here,” said Seth calmly.
“Oh yeah, you think you can take all of us,” said one of them aggressively.
“You’re damn right I can,” he yelled deeply as he clenched his fist, forcing more thick veins up his arms and also on his forehead.
One step towards the hooligans on the side of the street got them to bounce back and start running from the scene. “Dude, let’s just get out of here, I’m not dealin’ with all that!”
“You all right, bro?” asked Seth.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just some name calling.”
“Well, if they ever bother you again, you let me know and we’ll fight them together. I’ll hold them down while you beat the shit out of them,” Seth said jokingly.
“Haha. Sounds like a plan,” Adam said dismissively.
Fast forward to the fall, and it was finally time for Adam to go to college. He couldn’t be more excited to start at a brand new school, with new opportunities to make friends and learn new things. But more importantly, he made himself a promise that he would try to work out again and hoping with everything that he had that he was just a late bloomer in the muscle world.
Adam got to his dorm to the first time, exhaustively dropped all of his bags and immediately rushed to the gym. He had a really strong feeling that this time around, things were going to be different and he was finally going to gain some size. He decided to go with the hoodie and sweatpants look. It’s a classic outfit worn to the gym for people “working on themselves” and not focused on flexing or showing off to others.
He got to the school gym, and it almost felt like he got weaker since the last time he tried to work out. He could barely bench press the empty bar, he was having trouble curling the 15-pound dumbbells, and he was out of breath in a few minutes while running on the treadmill. Not to mention the competition and intimidation at this gym. Perfect college men with perfect bodies. All of them with prize-winning, bulging biceps, hulking pecs, tree trunk legs and absolutely ripped abs. It was like walking into a bodybuilding pre-competition. All of these college guys look like they wouldn’t even go to class, but just stay in here all day downing protein shakes and benching with every plate available. Adam decided to leave. He would try again tomorrow. Maybe early in the morning right when the gym opened so he can attempt to work out alone.
He got some pre-made pasta dish to go from the cafeteria and headed back to his room. He scarfed down the food he bought and decided just to lay in bed. He looked up at his ceiling for hours, not being able to sleep, just thinking about his dream of being muscular. He didn’t even want to be muscular for other people’s attention. He just wanted to be a better self and feel confidence in his appearance. Adam started to get pretty tired and started falling asleep. As he was closing his eyes for the final time that night, he looked out the window at the stars, and said to himself, “I wish I grew muscle a hundred times as fast as everyone else. I wouldn’t even have to eat and I would never get tired. I wish this more than anything.”
Adam woke up the next morning right at 6 a.m., although groggy, ready to hit the gym. He decided to go with the same outfit this morning that he went with yesterday, still embarrassed by his thin frame. He arrived at the gym and decided to warm up on the treadmill for a few minutes. He felt some pretty good energy today. He started to run and just kept on going and going for 30 minutes. He finally got off the treadmill, thinking that his legs would be like Jell-O, but they felt totally normal. He actually felt a bit of a pump in his legs. Weird, but not unheard of after running that much.
He made his way to the bench press. At this point, some people started to show up in the gym for their morning workouts. Although embarrassing, Adam just laid on the bench with the empty bar and would play it off as his “warmup” if anyone started chuckling at him. He started lifting the bar and felt that it was a bit easier than last time he worked out. “Well, I guess after one day of lifting nothing, you can now lift slightly more than nothing,” Adam dismissively thought. He then got the confidence to add some more weight to the bar. He threw a 10 pound plate on each side, started lifting that and one rep later, he put the bar down and had to add more weight. It didn’t feel like there was any difference. He replaced those plates with some 25 pound weights, and laid down on the bench. Adam had never lifted this much before so he was really nervous with all of the people around. He picked up the weight off the rack and started benching it. The first couple of reps were pretty hard, and then as he got to the 6th or 7th rep, it started going up easier. He started feeling a weird sensation in his chest. Almost a warm feeling. This feeling gave him a little bit of an energy boost so he decided to just try to do one 45-pound plate on either side.
Benching that much is usually a big milestone for any lifter. The first time benching with a full plate on either side. Adam laid down, and now the gym was filled up with students. He was so nervous to lift this weight. Even though getting one plate on either side was a big achievement it was even more humiliating to fail at that weight in front of all those people. He grabbed ahold of the bar, squeezed his hands, and lifted the bar off the rack. He immediately felt like his arms were wobbly. He was about the drop the weight on himself. Adam knew that one weight drop on himself would ruin his reputation for all of college, so he took a few deep breaths, and then slowly let the weight down to his chest, having no idea if he would be able to lift it back up.
He focused his mind, focused on the muscle fibers in his chest, and pushed the weight back up. His body was reacting to the adrenaline from that light, and he continued to push the weight up and down. The warm feeling returned after the 5th rep or so and Adam continued to push the weight up and down on the bench. Eventually getting to 15 reps and deciding to put the bar back on the rack. Adam swung his arms down towards the floor, and chuckled to himself. He then took a deep breath and audibly exclaimed, “Holy shit!”
That statement wasn’t from the surprise of now having a new bench press personal record, but as he took his deep breath, his eyes loomed and through his size small hoodie he was wearing, he could see the shape of pecs starting to form under the thick fabric. He started turning red and panicking. He had no idea what to think. Adam got off the bench and ran out of the gym and started sprinting towards his dorm. He got back to his place and ran into the bathroom to splash water in his face. After pushing hot water onto his face for a few seconds he looked up at the mirror and knew that he wasn’t dreaming. Underneath the thick grey hoodie, he could see the shape of pecs. He had never undressed so quickly in his life. He ripped off his hoodie to see a pair of pecs that would make a beginner bodybuilder jealous. Meat slabs that felt like they were made of concrete protruding from Adam’s frame, absolutely dwarfing every other part of his body proportionally.
Adam pushed his arms together to flex his new chest and saw veins snake up and down the rock hard muscle. He felt like he was out of breath from all of the shocked gasps he made while flexing his impressive torso. He relaxed his arms and decided to try the one thing he had dreamed of doing for years. He focused on his individual chest muscles and started bouncing them while laughing hysterically. He kept bouncing his pecs to different rhythms and chuckling the entire time. He had never even seen his brother do this with his big chest, but now Adam had his own pair of pecs to play with.
Adam ran everything he did the past few days through his head over and over. “Did someone slip me steroids? Did I finally just hit puberty?”
“Wait…” Adam thought.
He remembered that the night before he had wished for his muscles to grow a hundred times faster than everyone else. His mind was trying to convince him that it couldn’t have come true, but the evidence was clear in his newly acquired bulging chest. He then had a “lightbulb” go off in his head. He looked down and jumped as fast as he could out of his grey sweatpants. His legs were huge. It looks like he stole a famous cycler’s quads and calves. His calves looking like softballs, and his quads the size of watermelons, with veils of veins flowing down all the way down to his feet. He remembered that he started with his run and then ended up sprinting all the way back to his dorm. He was amazed how fast he was growing from only two short runs and one set of benching. As Adam continued to smile ear to ear, he looked back in the mirror and realized that his body was way out of proportion. He had huge tree trunk legs, and a massive chest, but nothing else. He needed to even himself out.
As he was unsure how others would react to his proportions, Adam put back on his grey sweatpants and grey hoodie and ran as fast as he could back to his gym. As he walked in the weight room, he could feel that his legs had already gotten a little bit bigger. He could see his calf shape and quad thickness starting to show through the oversized sweatpants. He decided to get right to work on his arms to even out his upper body after he noticed that with only his new chest, it just looked like he stuffed t-shirts in his hoodie to make himself look big.
Adam walked over to the dumbbells and went straight for the 20-pound dumbbells and began curling them. Although it started off difficult, as he started to pound the weights over and over again, it got easier and easier. It put the weights down and immediately tried to flex his bicep, hoping to see something through his hoodie. Although tiny, he could see a little bit of shape starting to happen. He got so excited that he went right for the 35-pound dumbbells. He thought maybe that was too big of a jump of weight, but he wanted to overload his arms as soon as he could. Boy was he right. Those weights were very heavy and as he tried to curl the dumbbell for the first time, he failed. He then took a deep breath and added a little bit of swing. He was eventually able to get the weight up on each arm, but then started to feel that warm feeling again. He started making audible grunts while curling the larger dumbbells, and as he predicted, the weight began feeling lighter and lighter.
Other gym goers started to notice Adam was making a lot of noise, and it was then that the scrawny kid that walked in a few minutes prior, now had visible biceps underneath his hoodie. Some gasped, while some offered him encouragement. Adam slammed the weights down on the ground and saw that he was being stared at. He looked down at his arms and saw that he now had a serious set of pipes on him. Although impressive, he was not ready to take off the hoodie yet.
He made his way over to the tricep machine and began pushing down 50 pounds of weight on the machine. As he continued to push and sweat, he felt the warm feeling much faster than last time. He stopped his set and bumped the weight up to 75 pounds. He started pushing the weight down with a grunt for each rep. He felt his triceps begin growing against the machine and started pushing harder and faster. He finally turned the weight up to 100 pounds and continued to push harder and harder until he almost felt like pillows were beneath his arms. He took a deep breath after finishing his last set and looked at the arms of his hoodie starting to get stretched from the size of his new arms.
He decided to finish his workout on the Lat Pulldown machine. At this point, Adam had a full crowd around him. He just decided to lift whatever weight was left on the machine, which was 170 pounds. Adam couldn’t even think straight, he was so excited that his wish came true, and he was growing muscle like never before. He started to pull down the pulley. It was too easy. He turned the weight up to 200 pounds. After grabbing the wide handle, he started pulling and felt that he may have not been quite strong enough for this weight yet and he may have gotten ahead of himself. The newly created beast focused his mind, started getting that warm feeling and pulled as hard as he could until he finally started pulling the handle down for reps. Everyone around him was cheering him on as Adam grunted with every rep, and as the reps continued, he felt his previously oversized hoodie get very tight now that his back has caught up.
After finishing his set of lat pulldowns, he now had a full posse asking him questions and admiring his physique, even though he was still wearing the sweats. He walked over to the mirror and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He saw an amateur bodybuilder who looked like he was stuffed into his little sister’s pajamas. The old hoodie that Adam had worn since middle school now was doing more to suffocate him than provide comfort. His new groupies began to chant “take it off! take it off!”
As Adam was not used to this kind of attention, his face turned red and he sheepishly removed his hoodie first. What he saw was anything beyond his belief. His arms had transformed from shapeless PVC pipes to a pair of monstrously powerful arms. His biceps had single thick vein running down the long parts of the muscle, his triceps looked like a 10lb tumor growing off his arm, and his forearms would make a professional lumberjack jealous. He then realized that even though he didn’t even workout his shoulders, they must’ve had some indirect work from the exercises he was doing. He saw two boulders snaked in thin veins and with the shape and hardness of cannonballs. Adam turned his body and noticed that his lats were now completely visible and jutting out impressively from the sides of his body. He completely turned and saw from another mirror that he had developed a back that resembled a full turtle shell.
Adam began breathing heavy and getting a bit light headed from everything that just happened. It only took a moment for someone to tap him on his shoulder and ask if they can take his measurements. A beautiful busty girl pulled him aside and started measuring.
Biceps: 18in
Chest: 45in
Waist: 32in
Forearms: 15in
“Hey babe, let’s measure your legs too,” the young blonde exclaimed.
Adam forgot that his legs had also been growing today. He took off his sweatpants only to see that his legs had grown again in that short run back to the gym from his dorm. His quads were absolutely packed with muscle and his calves were now diamond shaped and massive with even more veins covering them under the thin veil of leg hair.
Quads: 27in
Calves: 17in
“How tall are you big guy? We’ll measure your BMI when we do your weight,” said a random gym-goer.
“Oh, I’m 5’11,”“ answered Adam.
“Yeah, that’s a funny joke. We’ll just measure you right now,” laughed another gym-goer.
Adam was confused but as he looked around the gym, he did notice that everyone around him looked around the same height or a little bit shorter. It was completely viable at this point in Adam’s mind that he had also gotten a little taller.
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 210 pounds
Adam got the numbers back and almost passed out. He had just gained 85 pounds in one afternoon and grew 3 inches taller. He was now 10 pounds heavier than his older brother, but one inch shorter.
Adam’s wish had come true. He was growing muscle at an extremely accelerated rate. He left the gym without a word to his new following. He knew exactly who he wanted to talk to now. He walked across campus slowly as to not stimulate his legs before he was ready, and knocked on the door of the dorm room.
“Seth, come out here, I have something to show you.”