Carl's Full program and much more: http://bbcom.me/19BHeUd Carl Roberts won our 2012 Military Transformation Challenge, and now he is a personal trainer, helping to propel his clients forward with their fitness. Carl Roberts, a United States Marine, isn't the biggest guy. Never was. But this Afghanistan veteran found a way to gain 50 pounds of lean mass while defending our nation with honor and valor. In our judgment, that makes Roberts one certified badass. On the heels of those efforts, Roberts won the 2012 Military Transformation Challenge at Bodybuilding.com. Now that he is back stateside, he's a personal trainer, using his diminutive past to propel his clients into a massive future. Read his story, sign up for the 2013 contest, and you too can share your story of success! In high school, Carl Roberts weighed 98 pounds. Yet he still tried out for the football team as a freshman. He washed out in a month, too small to make much of an impact. Like many high school graduates in search of a direction, Roberts enlisted in the Marine Corps straight out of high school. Suddenly, he was among some of the baddest men on the planet. Being small is OK; being weak is not. His brothers in arms dragged him to the gym, put iron in his fists and set him to work. Carl responded well to the positive reinforcement. "In the Marine Corps, it's a big thing to stay active and stay in shape," Roberts says. "It became a big part of my life to be more active, to put on more mass." His first tour began in Okinawa, Japan. He tried boxing and worked with a coach that first year. Toward the end of his second year in Okinawa he started transitioning from daily boxing to weight training, hitting the iron hard. "I had a roommate and a couple of guys who I stayed with who were big gym rats," Roberts says. "At first when I would go with them I basically had no knowledge of what to do lifting weights. I'd go in and take the heaviest weight I could lift, do it four times, then move on to another machine. They gave me the basics and the guidelines, showed me the compound movements and the right things to do." In time, Carl made fitness a habit: work, chow, gym, and repeat.

• published: 24 Oct 2013
• views: 77665