Brad Warner
Nov 2 · 4 min read

Life is About Comebacks

I’m Brad Warner and the first photo was taken at the Ball State Bodybuilding Championships, April 1999. The second photo was taken in August 2019 over 20 years later, I’m 44 years old in this one! I highlight these photos to show what can be accomplished as a lifetime natural (steroid free) bodybuilder and also to show the positive effects of bodybuilding on slowing the aging process. I graduated high school in 1993 and weighed approximately 160 lbs. I was very near 160 lbs in both photos also but my natural body weight has been as high as 205 lbs (blubbery) in 2007. I like to maintain about 170 lbs off-season from bodybuilding and cut about 10 lbs to be on stage with maximum definition. I’m a fitness trainer by profession and own 2 private training facilities in Indiana in addition to providing online fitness training and nutrition courses and counseling. I’m married and I also own 8 acres of land and manage a small nonprofit horse farm with 3 miniature horses, a miniature donkey, 4 rescue barn cats and 2 rescued dogs. I also have 2 full size rescued horses, one a thoroughbred that used to race. I’ve actually learned a great deal about nutrition working with so many animals.

I’m very proud of how far I’ve come in this world considering I weighed 3 pounds, 10 oz. at birth and was only given a 50% chance to survive. I spent the first month of my life alone, in an incubator to finish developing my heart and lungs for a chance at survival.

My childhood was extremely active, playing baseball, climbing trees, riding bikes, fishing, and spending as much time outside as possible. Fast forward to 7th grade and at that time I was 5 foot tall and weighed 85 lbs. I’ve always been on the small end of the scale. I remember clearly my dad had a 3 foot by 3 foot glass front display case and within it he had approximately 30 blue ribbons from mostly track and wrestling meets from his youth. I wanted to be just like my dad and had decided early on that I would become a champion wrestler. My first year of wrestling was in the seventh grade and I wrestled 85 lbs. I lost every single match and got pinned every single match. After this seventh grade wrestling season was the start of who I am today and where my passion for exercise, specifically weight training was born. My dad, Larry was by my side every single match and after every match he would talk to me about what went right and try to teach me along the way. My first match I was pinned in 10 seconds and had no clue what was going on. Most kids at that age use a headlock to pin opponents and this created a lot of fear for me. Being in a headlock caused a panic reaction in me because I couldn’t breathe. A headlock can compress the carotid arteries and I almost passed out a few times. It also causes severe symptoms of claustrophobia. In spite of all this, I faced a tremendous fear every time I had a match. I went out there anyway, with my dad by my side. I couldn’t have possibly done it otherwise. By the end of my 7th grade season I could almost last the entire match without getting pinned. We focused on that and on the improvements and I never once considered quitting. I had already set my mind on becoming a champion like my father and quitting was never in my mind.

Finding a solution was in my mind, however. After my 7th grade season, I discovered strength training with some buddies and saw some results. My 8th grade season was a complete turnaround. I had gained 15 pounds and wrestled 100 lbs. I was the one doing the pinning and finished the season with 13 wins, many by pin and only lost 1 match during the season. I also got my hand raised with my teammates as the victor at the Muncie City Championship that year. To say that weight training was now in my blood is such and understatement. I went on to compete at the State Championship level in high school and coached at various levels for 7 years in addition to teaching high school biology and chemistry for 2 years just out of college.

In another post, I’ll describe a more recent comeback I’m currently making. I ended up with a $30,000 hole in my yard and recently thought I could lose my home, property, and farm with a lot of uncertainty about the fate of my beloved animals.


More to come

Brad Warner

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