"I wanted to be a role model for my son, so I lost 24kg and got on the boards" - the real transformation of Vlastimil Hladky

[Author: Vlastimil Hladký ]

Find your WHY

Emptiness, sadness, disappointment, anger and regret. That's how you could sum up my feelings on the morning of October 8, 2020, exactly two days before my first bodybuilding competition, the government bans all mass events and thus competitions. I am sitting like a scalded man, tears are coming to my eyes and I can hardly absorb the information that I am watching on TV, I am on duty at the fire brigade and my colleagues who are experiencing my whole preparation with me are just silently watching what is happening inside me and how tears are slowly running down my face, one after another. Soon I receive the first phone calls, from my girlfriend, who has suffered with me all through my preparation, who has endured all my moods and she too is looking forward to my dream coming true and standing on the boards for the first time, it is not an easy call, rather I just listen as if from afar to words of comfort and regret for all this and how they will be looking forward to seeing me at home with my son when I return home from duty.

The next call is this time from my father, a man who has guided me all my life towards sports, taught me discipline and even though it was football at the time, thanks to him I built a strong will and learned to train beyond exhaustion, his motto was:

If you think you train hard, there are thousands of others who train much harder, so take a breath and join in

Again I hear how it's a shame but also that nothing is happening and it's important to keep going and not let it break you, in a way he was right but he was definitely wrong about something and that was that nothing was happening.

When you give your full attention to something 24/7 it's part of you, you're in tune with it, you don't see anything other than hard training, not the joy of being healthy and going to the gym, you only see the macros on your plate, you don't care whether you like the food or not, you want to have peace at home and when you don't have it you yell at everyone, including your little two-year-old son, who can't understand that daddy needs to rest and then you feel terribly sorry for him in that solitude and you hope that you will last another day and then another until the mentioned races and when you go through all this hell you can hardly accept the fact that it's over. Anyone who has been through something like this will tell you how terribly hard it is when you suddenly lose direction, the emptiness just makes you feel insecure, empty and you start to become a shadow of who you used to be.

In the course of three months, I'm going from 75 kg to about 100 kg and what's worse I'm starting to tell myself that I'm just resting, getting in better shape and of course it's all about volume. I repeat all this to myself so often that I start to believe it. I continue to exercise and again I enjoy exercising when I'm loaded in sugars, unfortunately even when I lift weights and don't spare myself at that time I find that I never achieve any major results unless I really give my body the nutrition it needs. Again comes the frustration of realizing that without quality food I am not going to get anywhere and so why exercise?

For the first time, the question of WHY comes up for me?

I start to reduce the number of workouts, I get more tired and more empty, I try to tell myself that I am subordinating everything to my family. Inside I feel it's all bullshit and I'm starting to fit in with the average of other parents. Parents, dads, formerly young athletic guys who worked out were proud and strong. The same ones now have tummies going to beer and fast food joints, not playing sports and forcing their kids to exercise and telling them about a seedy hard to believe past full of great athletic feats. Of course, I don't want to offend anyone, I'm just trying to approximate my feelings. In May 2021 we start trying for a second child, I wish for a girl but to my surprise it doesn't go so smoothly. It all stems from the disappointment of an unfulfilled goal.

At that moment something happens that shakes me up, I finish my lunch on the terrace and roll away from the table with a sigh, my hands on my fat belly, then I take a sip of my beer and look at my son with a smile and just then that moment comes and out of nowhere, my boy finishes his last bite, takes a sip of his juice, leans back in his chair and blows his nose like a dad and folds his hands on his tummy. Everything inside me suddenly screams and seems to wake up again, my WHY found a clear answer in that moment and started screaming and spouting answers. Your son is watching you all the time and doing everything he can to be like you!

Do you want him to see you as a hero, a tough and determined, go-getter guy who is willing to fight through the pain and succeed no matter what? No other options were an option anymore as if there was no other way and I could clearly see which way to go. In the beginning, the finances had to be sorted out. As I mentioned at the beginning, I work as a professional firefighter and when you add in a mortgage on the house, a wife on maternity leave and trying to expand the family. All of this could not be covered on one albeit decent salary. My father helped fund my first training and I gradually paid him back, but this path would not be the right choice in the long run. I decided to contact a friend of mine from the gyma, Jana Doležalová, and František Melka, who had worked for many years in financial consulting, and asked him if he had a job for me. After a short interview, I entered the entry academy and started my business in finance and the first major issue was resolved.

Next, I'm addressing the coaching position, as I'm changing my complete strategy and don't want to repeat old mistakes, I'm approaching a new coach Jan Kudyna with years of experience both racing and coaching, who already at my first training spent time with me at the bar in the gym and tried to keep my head on a positive wave and that was actually the main reason why I approached him. My team included people from both jobs, a trainer, a physiotherapist and most importantly my girlfriend, who whenever I've dropped one knee to the ground has stood so close to me that I can lean back and keep going. So the team is complete, I have a good cast at every position as I say with a smile and we are starting to tackle the preparation. I practice split 2+1 all the time for work and I don't change that until the end.

The first training sessions in May are more of a familiarization and we are finding out how the body is. We only deal with food by radiating low-quality ingredients but I don't have to limit the portions in any way. The principle is not to shock him yet, but to get him started. In July I find out I'm going to be a father for the second time, coincidence? I don't think so. The head and the heart are the strongest muscles in the body, and whoever believes that has a chance to reach his full potential. In August we go on holiday to Italy with the understanding that on the last day of the holiday I will weigh myself for the first time and when I return we will start to deal with food.

I work out two days in a row and one day when I'm at the fire department I have a day off, so I have the parts divided into chest, back, legs, shoulders, arms and abdomen and I work out a different part every workout. As for food I have the gift that I don't mind eating the same thing over and over again, I am able to eat the same meals day after day. So food has been mostly about eggs, chicken, rice, cottage cheese, veggies and vitamins. By the end of the year I learn that we are really expecting a girl and I lost some three kilos on the weight, but the body is slowly changing and in the words of the trainer, everything is going well and we can't afford to rush anything, I don't worry about anything and just keep working. Christmas is a completely normal day for me in terms of diet and training. After the new year we split the parts into chest + arms, back + shoulders, legs + zinc and abs we are still going the same. We cut back on food and only the egg whites remain. Workouts, two jobs, boxed food wherever I am!

In addition, I'm trying to manage trips with my family and not losing anywhere. I'm so motivated that even though I go to bed around 2 and get up at 5. There is always new and renewed energy and it just confirms that if you put time into what you enjoy, time is just a secondary variable. After we set the race date I pick up the pace even more and for the first time in a while a problem appears. The weight that had dropped by about ten kilos in that time suddenly stopped and even started to rise slightly. We look for a solution and then we change the meat, chicken for cod and rice for racio bread. The weight responds immediately and continues to fall.

In March, the most beautiful little girl in the world, my daughter, will join our team and my WHY will become even stronger. My girlfriend is in the hospital and I'm managing to take care of the little one, bring him to daycare, play, cook for him while he's at the gym. I work on my laptop at night and then clean and prepare clothes and food boxes for myself into the night. By 5:30, I'm up and ready for breakfast. That's when I first start to feel the fatigue and at that point, along with the calorie deficit, I can't get rid of it until the race. I don't give a damn about my surroundings and keep going at the top of my game, records written in my second job, promotions coming, but every time I stop for a moment and sit down, my head immediately drops and I fall asleep. For a month and a half, I'm on a shake with ration bread and green vegetables. For the last four weeks I've been working out in a sweatshirt and incorporating cardio for 40 minutes, I can't function at home anymore, tantrums are the order of the day.

I sleep alone, eat alone, and a trip if I can stand one is for an hour at most. Add to that looking at those little eyes when they try to cheer me up and I explode over some bullshit. Yes, this is also the toll of that moment on stage and when you lie alone and realize this, you feel so sorry for yourself, but you know that if you give up the pain will be much more painful and will last much longer. At that moment my girlfriend is my support in everything she comes out to me she only talks to me when I want, she doesn't bother me with anything, she arranges everything and takes care of the children, she is stronger than me and that's when it shows the most. I think if a guy wants to be successful and strong in everything he does, unless he has a stronger other half by his side he will never reach his potential.

It's the end of the preparation and the supercompensation in the last week, three days on carbohydrate zeroes, dissolving with hectolitres of water and the last day to dry nicely without water. A coat of paint and just a morning and finally some rice and chicken again. Day D is here - 14.5. 2022 and we are going to Čelákovice. A lot of people asked me if I was nervous, to tell you the truth, not a moment, it's like when you have a dream that you will buy a new car and when you go to buy it you are nervous or you are excited? I was fulfilling my dream and looking forward to when that moment finally came. I knew that even if maybe my hands weren't perfect or my free setup was easy, I was calm, I knew I had done the absolute maximum and there was nowhere to add. Not once did I skip practice, not once did I eat anything my coach wouldn't let me. I did everything so I could be proud and my kids could see that.

It was all about all the hard work, the pain of getting back up, it was never about the race but being a better person and the real victory was happening inside of me the whole time. The race itself was just a vivid image of what I saw in every training session, a visualization of what I had imagined so many times, the semifinals and advancing to the finals. My brother and father are also in the audience. In the finals, as above plan, fifth place out of ten participants at a competition weight of 76,1 kg. Everything was as it should have been and it couldn't have been better, coming home with the medal was something huge for my son, he ran around the house with the diploma looking for a place to display it, then he wore the medal around his neck and played the winner. The deed was done, he never saw his dad over a beer with his belly stuffed again. He saw the winner!

Then he was at the photo shoot at the Gym and I saw that the journey, which was the hardest I've ever been on in my life, had a significance far greater than I realised and if you've read this far maybe you too are already on a good but pretty thorny road. I wish you all success because that is the most beautiful thing you can do for yourself and your loved ones. One thing is true though, don't look for shortcuts, there are none! Just food, hard training, a plan and most importantly find your strong WHY and with that you will find the will, the love, the courage and yourself!

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