r/bodybuilding do any of you suffer from long term/life long illnesses?

I started lifting while I was in the middle of chemotherapy. I had stopped school and stuff until I was done treatment so I wasn't really doing anything at all so my dad signed me up to a gym. He explained what was going on with me to the owner and he gave me like a 2 day program of some machines and dumbell work. Nothing serious, just get me moving, break a bit of a sweat and take my mind off things for an hour. I couldn't push myself as hard as normal people because my body was recovering from treatment.

People talk about gym anxiety but man there is no worse anxiety than walking into a gym that had a lot of seriously big dudes as a 114 lb guy with no hair at all. For some reason, even though I was clearly not well and everyone could see it, I still thought I had to try and get my lifts up somewhat so the other people in there didn't think I was a bitch lol. I remember after about 2 months I moved up to curling 7.5 kg dumbells from the 5kg ones. I distinctly remember looking at myself lifting the 7.5kg ones and knowing that not that long ago I wouldn't have been able to lift it, and it was the best feeling in the world. One of the trainers came up and congragulated after she noticed I had gone up in weights. Tiny in comparisson to normal people but that day I felt like Arnold.

I didn't move to compounds and get on a proper hypertrophy program until long after I finished treatment, but that's how it started for me. When I did get lifting properly I went on a looooooooooong bulk and the progress I made it really helped me look much better and not skinny and sickly. Felt way more confident. It's nice looking back to then and seeing how far I've come, both in and out of the gym.

/r/bodybuilding Thread