I am 16 years old and have been lifting weights for about 2 years. I first got interested in 9th grade during P.E. Every Tuesday and Thursday we would go to the weight room and do bench press. My first bench max was 130 pounds. At the end of that semester I could bench 160 pounds. I got really enjoyed it, so I signed up for weightlifting for the first semester of tenth grade. Over the summer I started searching the internet for infomation and workouts for the bench press. One day I came across a site that claimed to raise your bench press 50 pounds in 6 weeks (muscle media). It was free, so I figured I would try it. I bought some weights and got to it. During this program, I continued to search the web for better workouts. One day I found a site called Fig's Natural Weightlifting and Bodybuilding, it got me into a whole body workout instead of only bench press. At the end of the add 50 pounds to your bench press program, I could lift 180 pounds. Ok, so it didn't add 50 pounds like it claimed, but it did add 30 pounds (not bad).
School had started and I looked forward to a workout where every muscle was hit only once a week. Well it turned out the coach didn't care about any lift but the bench press. He wanted us bench pressing 3 days a week. I read that 3 days a week will almost always lead to overtraining, but I decided to do it anyway. About 2 weeks later my bench press was down about 15 pounds. So I took a week off from benching and started my own program. I made gains faster than every person in the class and convinced a couple of my class mates to start my workout.
I didn't take the class ever again. I started working out at home. I lowered the weight I was using and really got my form perfect. I was really getting great gains. I got my diet in order and made even better gains.
When I started lifting weights, weighed about 205 pounds and was about 6 feet tall. I am now 240 and 6 feet 2 inches and am about 23% body fat. I am starting a diet today. I am an endomorph (gains weight easily and losing weight is difficult). My best bench press is 220 pounds (poor form), my best squat is 275, and my best deadlift is 310 pounds.