Success Stories 20

Fitness Success Stories (20)
We've heard many success stories over the years, and here are some of them that are especially noteworthy and inspiring.

My training journey started when I was 19. A skinny lad of 188cm (6 ft 2 in) and 60kg (132 lb). Bench pressing an empty bar once was my limit. I started training my shoulders because I saw what had happened to my grandmother when she lost shoulder mobility. So my goals were initially long-term. But I meandered a lot, and didn't know how, and did of course try some stupid goals along the way.

Svein at age 18 in karate attire.

In my late 20ies, I came across good training books: The so called "Hardgainer" school, and then other HIT protocols, and "old school," and at around 30, I landed on Clarence Bass as my favorite author. I quickly cemented my goals to be primarily long term. I set up a list of weights I should be able to lift even at age 70. And some hopeful (a bit higher weight) goals to reach before then. The idea was to challenge myself to the max along the way - but always with the proviso that it should not harm me so that my goals at age 70 were compromised. I am now soon 58, and am proud to be what a PT said was "very fit for a guy in his 40ies." And primarily thanks to Clarence, I think.

My current bodyweight is 90 kg. (198 lb) Quite lean. Seven years ago, after a year of writing a statistics textbook, meaning I did an average of 14 hours a day every day of the week, continuously, my bodyweight was up to 115kg. (253 lb) Too much!

Svein looking a little heavy.

When the book was done, I remembered Clarence's "barbell protocol," and focused especially on the light end by doing a minimum of half an hour's walk before breakfast every day. That walk helped me not just in terms of number of calories consumed, but also – magically! – was the magic ingredient that made it easy to control my appetite throughout the day. And I should perhaps mention that I can be easily addicted: to food, games, anything. So it broke my sugar addiction. But ... my easy addictedness was also helpful, for I made up my mind to have a time-limited addiction to help me: Pokemon Go! So my walk consisted of capturing all the poke gyms within a certain radius of home before breakfast. And I never skipped a day! After a year, I weighed in at 87 kg (192). Since then, I've been steady at around 90 (198). Thanks to good training and a sensible approach to eating.

The other part of the barbell routine has also been fun, the hard but short part. My favorite is a protocol again from Clarence, about two 100%, all-out spurts of 30s each, once per week. It's either on the rowing machine, or I sprint up two of a few selected steep hills on my morning walk. Hills with lots of strong roots or firm rocks to kick off from are the best.

I make it a point to challenge my best, all the time, but in various ways. And varying the ways matters. I did my best dips at BW+65kg (143) some years ago, and at the same time did a form-perfect chin at BW+45kg (99 pounds). Achievements I am proud of. But the +65 (143) dips were done at a time when my training weight was at +30kg, which was the most I could do 5 reps with. And I thought I had reached my limit. But then I switched out the dips with incline bench for a while, and when I returned to dips, I could suddenly do 5 reps of +40! So variety pays off!

I would also add that the HIT emphasis on recovery and on always lifting in good form, rather than pushing volume, has helped me stay as good as injury free until my current age. So injury free and fit, that I am seriously considering making my 70-year goalposts 80-year goalposts instead. For I am injury free, and still making all-life PRs in strength.

There are other factors to physical training than endurance and strength, though those two are at the base. Those other factors are balance, flexibility and complex mobility. So I make a point of training them as well, by climbing, just playing ... and of course focused exercises. I would like to take balance especially. I take any opportunity to train my balance, even if it is in a small way. Find an elevated edge 5cm above ground: do a "tightrope walk". Going along the rocky shore? Step on the stones rather than just walk the path. Just make sure to choose the dry stones. Make longer skips when comfortable. I also do more acrobatic stunts, but I agreed with Clarence not to go into specifics there, since some of them can actually be dangerous, especially if you don't go through the baby steps but are tempted to go straight for them. There are in any case a plethora of safe inspiring balance exercises, like standing "aeroplane" on one foot on a bosu ball, or stepping sideways between two bosu balls. Or simply practicing hand stands.

But I would recommend adding balance, flexibility and mobility to your routine. Because sometimes maybe your strength has peaked, and you feel the need for a non strength related "driver" in your workouts. Then a goal within one of those categories will be what motivated you to go to the gym for that period.

Svein looking fit getting ready for dips

Svein Olav Gleeaaen Nyberg
Norway

This is one of the very few success stories that required no editing. Clearly, the man excels in mind and body.

September 1, 2025

I recently turned 58. In your tradition I take photos chronicling my progress or regression with age.
I dug up photos in my old shorts at 18 and again 40 years later. J.D.

Many people have branded you as THE authority on health, leanness, and nutrition. (Thanks. More muscular at 58. Good job.)

I might have second guessed you when I was in my teens and 20's. But, everything you wrote since I began reading your column regularly in 1981 has proven correct or was the most correct of the day.

With nutrition, training, or the psychological approach to staying lean. Only in one area have you ever been off base: Fat consumption.

I know how well you research what you write. You research something and then give us the real lowdown. If it makes sense, you explain how you incorporate it in your program.

Half the time you are already doing it instinctively. So, when you change things around I tend to copy you.

But, with diet I largely do. Especially the Old Reliable. While I won't be adding sardines to my cereal anytime soon, I have been adding mixed vegetables and beans to my cereal for the last 20 years.

I thought it was strange and it tasted weird at first. But, I now do it every morning.

I still have a big salad every night for dinner. I just add whatever meat and starch my wife or mother in law cooks to my salad, chop it up and eat it.

Since I read Challenge Yourself in 1998, you have been my E. F. Hutton in fitness and nutrition.

In 1988, at the age of 38, I was sent to the emergency room of Albuquerque’s Presbyterian Hospital with what was found to be a total blockage of my large colon. The blockage was determined to be colon cancer.

Unknown to me at the time, my wife, Geneva, was advised by the doctors to get our affairs in order, that I would not be coming home from the hospital.

I was deemed “terminal” by a team of some of the best doctors in the Southwest. Through the miracle of God’s healing power, I did live another 14 days---plus a few decades.

I trusted God to deliver me through the ordeal and took a number of steps that took me away from death’s door.

We came to Albuquerque in 1983 with the military. It was in Albuquerque where I met Clarence Bass and his wife Carol.

I had been an active bodybuilder since the age of 15, but I was not familiar with Clarence's health, fitness, and leanness lifestyle.

Before I met Clarence and read his “Ripped” series, my diet was far from what he promotes. It was high in fat and refined carbohydrates and had been for years.

I was, however, actively training to be build my body--an activity that was interrupted when the colon cancer was discovered.

My doctors later attributed my survival to my faith and my superb physical condition.

The first surgery removed ten inches of my colon and equipped me with a colostomy (an added appendage that transfers fecal material to a baggie affixed to the abdomen).

Within three months, my weight dropped from a muscular 215 pounds to 160. In the hottest part of the Albuquerque summer, I felt like I was freezing to death!

It took me a few weeks after the surgery, but when I had sufficiently recovered, I began by walking inside our house for as long as I could manage it. After the weather warmed up, I walked outside. Within a few months, I was walking the mountain trails behind our neighborhood for an hour or so a day.

In February of 1989, after 48 chemo treatments, I had a second abdominal surgery to reconnect my plumbing and remove the colostomy. By then, I had regained some of my weight and was still walking.

Because of the abdominal surgeries, it would be another two years before I could resume any kind of weight training.

Photo of Arnold and Hoss taken less than six months after his second abdominal surgery
(Photo taken by Rolf Moeller, Mr. Olympia, and subsequently a movie star in his own right, in World Gym, Santa Monica)

In my pre-surgery visit with my surgeon, Dr. Linda Smith, I showed her a page out of Muscle and Fitness Magazine of a bodybuilder with defined abs (like Clarence has).

I told her I knew I’d need to do a lot of work, but those were the abs I wanted when we were both finished.

She told me after the surgery that everything went ahead of schedule, and that she used the extra time to give me a “tummy tuck.”

She also said she knew I would do everything I could to rip out her beautiful stitches, so she sewed me up with “rope!”

I learned later that Dr. Smith was a dedicated runner who had finished a one-hundred-mile race just before my second surgery.

I had read that when a person is under anesthesia, they are subject to hypnotic suggestion. So, I wrote out a prayer that Dr. Smith agreed to read to me after I was under. The prayer included the statement: "I will heal quickly with minimal discomfort and will be bigger and stronger than I ever have been before.”

After the surgery was over, I started walking as soon as I was out of recovery. I kept a record of the number of laps I made around the huge Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital, and as best I can tell, I logged around 32 miles that week.

On several occasions they had to track me down to “take my vital signs.” I told them my vital signs were good and I preferred to keep moving to keep them!

After the fourth day following the surgery, the incision had completely healed without even a scab.

The second part of the prayer, however, should have been thought out a little better --- I eventually hit 260 pounds and ran out of clothes to fit!

Since then, I have been as low as 215 pounds but found that low of a weight to be at the expense of too much muscle mass. After experimenting with several approaches to diet and exercise, I have found that the “Ripped” program is the only one that really works for me as a bodybuilder.

I’m using lighter weights with more repetitions, and still working on getting a leaner physique.

Using the “Ripped” principles, I have leaned down to a muscular 235 and am still making progress.

I believe (with the “Ripped” diet and exercise program) my goal of 225 pounds and 10-15% bodyfat will be a reality.

I still have a ways to go, but at any age, I believe you are adding years if you are making progress.

I wanted to play football but was too skinny. My father and I looked on Craig's List and purchased a used weight bench. My mother’s co-workers gave me extra weights.

Dad also encouraged me to read Clarence Bass' book Great Expectations: Health, Fitness and Leanness Without Suffering.

Within six weeks I had added weight and muscle, but still felt too skinny for football. My cousin, also a football player, suggested taking in more protein to build muscle mass. My mom made it a point to prepare 3 balanced meals a day.

At the beginning of my junior year of high school, I felt confident about my ability to play football. I was stronger, my weight was up--and I LOOKED GOOD.

I was also training at a local gym and receiving expert advice on lifting from a personal trainer. He helped me focus on lifting correctly and I was beginning to see more and more muscle mass and definition.

During one of the first season games, I took a direct hit, tearing the ACL in my left leg. I was forced to stop practicing, playing and lifting, in order to rest and recover.

It was awful and very discouraging. After surgery my physique had stopped developing and I was unable to lift as much as before the injury. I knew that I had to stay positive and start all over again.

During physical therapy I was told that my ACL recovery went faster than expected due to me being strong and in great shape.

I slowly regained my strength, endurance, and defined physique, and feeling confident in myself. On occasion my dad would send Clarence updated photos of my progress. It was cool to read his responses, especially when he encouraged me to keep working hard and doing what I was doing!

I am now moving on to college and working hard to build and keep my body strong and healthy. I am unsure what sport I will go out for, but feel confident that my weight training will allow me to perform well in whatever I decide to do!

Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236
or street address: 528 Chama, N.E., Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108,
Phone (505) 266-5858 , e-mail: cncbass@aol.com ,
Office hours: Monday-Friday, 8-5, Mountain time