"I started training bodybuilding in 1983"

A single, time-stamped sentence anchors a lifetime of transformation. Naming 1983 places the beginning not just on a calendar but within a cultural and athletic landscape: post-Schwarzenegger, pre-internet, when bodybuilding still lived in gritty, fluorescent-lit gyms and magazines carried training wisdom like contraband. To say “I started training” emphasizes process over status; it is an allegiance to discipline before titles, a pledge to the ritual rather than the result.

The phrasing resists glamour. Training is foregrounded, bodybuilding is not a hobby or identity badge but a verb, a daily practice. It hints at cold mornings, logbooks, progressive overload, and the slow alchemy of habit. Starting in 1983 sets a clock ticking toward a decade of obscurity before the lights of Olympia. It acknowledges that greatness is often a long apprenticeship conducted away from crowds, built on repetition, recovery, and relentless self-honesty.

It also signals a pivot point in the sport’s evolution. The early ’80s still favored aesthetic lines, but the era that followed would redefine mass and conditioning. From that starting line, a path unfolds that would help reshape expectations: denser muscle, grainy detail, a darker, monastic approach to preparation. The spare directness mirrors a personality known for understatement and workmanlike focus. No flourish, no myth-making, just a date and a decision.

There’s geographic and social resonance too. Beginning in Britain during a time of economic strain adds texture: a subculture thriving on intensity and community within industrial settings, far from Californian glamour. The statement becomes a compact biography: a declaration of where the journey truly counts, under the bar, session after session.

Ultimately, the power lies in the ordinariness. Most turning points don’t announce themselves; they are marked by a first day that looks like any other. By fixing that first day in memory, the line honors the quiet courage to begin and the stubbornness to keep showing up until the world notices.