Heavy Hammer Gym

My name is Junior.  I live in Iowa,USA.  I am the Director of Choral Activities and Instructor of Music at a community college.  I teach classes in music appreciation, voice lessons, and choir as well as many others.  I am a professional singer who specializes in classical music and opera.  I am married and have a beautiful daughter who is 4 y.o. and a beefcake little boy who is  2 y.o.  I was involved in sports for most of my childhood.  I played baseball, soccer, and flag football as a kid.  I participated in Tae Kwon Do and held the rank of 1st degree black belt.  I did football, wrestling, and track/field in high school, as well as my music events, but never lifted much.  I got a scholarship to play football for college but hurt my knee before anything really took off.  I have always loved lifting weights and always thought I was sort of good at it.  I decided to get back into it after almost 7 years of not doing much with it.  I went to the Iowa Games Strongman Competition and decided that is what I wanted to do.  I missed competitive sports.  So I decided to train for the next Iowa Games in July 2015. (I competed in this competition.  I didn’t do as well as I liked, but plan on coming back stronger for a future Iowa Games.) In the mean time I bought my own weight equipment for home (Heavy Hammer Gym) and have been a part of an awesome gym, Big Iron Gym.  I have gotten some light coaching from World Record Powerlifter Shawn Frankl.

I have since competed in 5 powerlifting meets and have done pretty well for a beginner.  The last meet I competed in was in the Fall of 2016.  I placed well and came in under weight.  This was my falling off point.  For the last two years it has been hard for me to get back into the gym and has been a huge struggle with my diet.  Needless to say, in the last two years I probably worked out a total of 6 months worth of time and went from 229 lbs the d.o.m in ’16 to 265 lbs, my heaviest weight ever.

In January of 2018 I found out that I have some acid reflux issues that have been messing with my recovery due to my diet and sleep patterns as well as high blood glucose levels (not diabetic, but close).  I knew I needed to make a change.  I started the Keto Diet around mid January and as of today (mid-October) I have lost around 50 lbs.  My strength has gone down some (15-20 lbs off of previous maxes) but I can feel it coming back.  My goal weight is 200-205 lbs.  My goal lifts are the same weights I did at my last meet two years ago while weighing 25-30 lbs less (New weight classes baby!) I will hopefully compete in the Spring of 2018 and can update this at that time.

…THE REST IS COMING SOON…

I will try to update this page as often as possible.