Ben Garza
I have a soft spot for my California garage gym brothers and sisters, especially those that live in the various valley areas where the summers can be 110+, smoky, and all around nasty. That was my first connection to Ben. I also have a soft spot for a garage gym lifter who has the occasional kiddo join them for some big lifts. Ben’s son. Coach X Man, is an internet superstar and all around awesome kid. I also have a soft spot for dudes who are mid-way between that entry level strength and top tier strength, and often question their abilities.
Ben just so happens to live down the freeway from me, and shares all of those traits. Just a dude in California, hitting it hard in the garage, occasionally with his family, trying to make it out alive each and every day. I can relate.
Ben calls himself Fat, not Strong, but I think most people would give a dude with a 1400lb total a pass at being strong. He might not hold any world records, but a Squat and Deadlift over 400+lbs? Dude is selling himself short.
So today, we get to know a little about Ben, his struggles with weight, running, and his transition to powerlifting.
Tell us a little about yourself
My name is Ben Garza, and my story is nothing spectacular, no rags to riches, or started from the bottom now we here type thing. Hahaha. I am a heavily tattooed 6’1’’, 265 lbs. Mexican-American, who is dedicated to his family above anything else. I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA, and currently live in Elk Grove, CA with my wife, three kids and two dogs.
What are your hobbies outside of lifting?
Outside of lifting, I am a bookworm believe it or not. Stephen King is my spirit animal. Music also plays a huge role in my life. My tastes are all over the map, but I am always listening to something. Wu-Tang Clan, System of a Down, Chris Stapleton, Hozier, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Lana Del Rey, Eminem, Jarren Benton, The Teskey Brothers, on and on. I have PR’d listening to everything from Lil Wayne to Adele.
What does your athletic background look like?
I have been overweight (and still am to be honest) nearly my whole life. I have always been a bigger guy, and even at my lowest weight around the time I got married, I was still around 220 lbs. At my biggest, around the time my first son was born, I was around 320 lbs. When we took family pictures, I knew I had to do something, because I wanted to be around for my kids as long as possible. Family First is my mantra, so much so, I have it tattooed across my chest. So, I had to live it, and put them first. When it comes to physical activity, I played baseball since I was 5, played in high school, and even played a few years in a men’s league. But by the time I was 25, baseball was a wrap, leaving me with bad knees and a bum shoulder from decades of catching.
I moved on to running (can you believe that shit?), and for years slowly used running as a means of weight loss. After signing up for a 5K and making it without dying, I started setting my sights on longer runs. I did a few 10K’s and then had the crazy thought of trying a half marathon. Once I reached that milestone, the only thing left was a full marathon. 26.2 miles of pure agony. I was still weighing in around 230-240 lbs. probably, but I had built up some good stamina, and at the end of 2011, at the young age of 31, I completed the California International Marathon. I pulled my right quad about 23 miles in, and pretty much hobbled from aid station to aid station for the last 5K, but I made it and crossed the finish line at 5:15:30.
Once I did this, I kind of lost the thrill of the chase with running, my weight started to balloon up again, a reoccurring theme in my life, and I hit 300 lbs. again. I yo-yo’d through a few more years, getting down to 220, up to 275, over and over.
How’d you transition into lifting?
As far as lifting goes, I started late in life. I pissed away my twenties and some of my thirties, never really getting into lifting for a sustained period of time. Add to that the fact that I am a bigger guy who most people would assume would be strong, (I was not) and it kept me from wanting to get into a real gym. The turning point was when my family moved into a house that had a free gym available to residents in the community. It wasn’t much. No free weights other than dumbbells, but a Smith machine, and a lot of other machines. But it was free, mostly empty, and available 24 hours. This is where it started for me really getting into lifting on a consistent basis.
Once I got tired of benching on the Smith machine, and injured my shoulder trying to ego lift on it, I had enough courage and confidence to join a small gym close to my house. This is where I discovered this beautiful thing called powerlifting. I searched the internet on ways to help bench with an injured shoulder and found the Sling Shot. That is how I found Mark Bell, Silent Mike, Jimmy McD, and the crew at Supertraining. From there, I discovered CT Fletcher, Ed Coan, Louie Simmons, and all the glory that was powerlifting. I didn’t even know what powerlifting was. But once I read up on the principles, that was it, I knew it was for me. From that point on, while I still would like to shed a few pounds, especially as I get older, I dedicated myself to getting stronger. If I was going to be fat, I wanted to be strong and fat. So, I started deadlifting, squatting, benching, and focusing on pushing my strength. From there, I joined a 24 Hour Fitness, and did not feel intimidated at all. I was strong enough and comfortable enough with myself to go in there and knock out my training. This is where my story goes on the road….
For about a year in 2017, my family and I moved across country to Memphis, Tennessee, for my job. I wanted to keep my training going so I joined an LA Fitness while I was out there. Hit my first 495 deadlift while I was out there. Hahaha. At this point, I was about 4 years into consistent lifting. So, I was over the hump of this just being another time I started and stopped. It was part of my life. So, when we moved back to Cali in the spring of 2018, I told my wife I was tired of going to the gym. I wanted a gym in my garage. Best thing I ever did.
Ok, so that was the beginning of the garage gym. What did it look like?
I started out with a rack, adjustable bench, deadlift platform, Power Bar and Deadlift Bar. Really just the basics, but since then, I have added an SSB, Cambered Bar, trap bar, Bells of Steel Reverse Hammer, a bicep curl/tricep extension machine, bands, chains, and even built my own deadlift blocks. I am running out of room for any more equipment to be honest, but would love to find a way to get a real lat pulldown cable machine. For now, I will settle for the setup I have. I have only trained at home since getting back to California, and outside of my youngest son, the infamous and intense Coach X-man, alone. I started my IG account when we moved to Memphis so my folks and in-laws could see the kids through the posts, but when we got back home, I started up one dedicated to my lifting. Really not for likes, but more of a place to catalog my progress. This is when I discovered Dave Tate at Elite FTS, and this crazy thing called conjugate. Since then, it has been my primary method of training. I also discovered the fellas over at Massenomics, Live Large, Trigger Warning Conjugate, and a bunch of other good guys in the powerlifting world. Around the same time, a crazy post came across my feed about a free online competition from Garage Gym Competition.
Ok, so here we go into the GGC!
While I would never rule out stepping onto a real platform, it is just not something I see myself doing, so this online competition was something I really wanted to do. To perform all three lifts in one session, to see what I could really do, in an environment as close to a real competition as possible, I was all in. I first competed in 2019, and have competed every year since then. I totaled 1,350 in 2019, took a step back in 2020 totaling only 1,280. It was a disappointment, but what made up for it was the fact that my whole family competed that year, and it was awesome to see them out there. In 2021, I bounced back in a big way and totaled 1,400 lbs. This was also the first year my son was able to use a real bar for his entry, though it is a 15 lbs. aluminum bar.
What does your 2022 GGC timeline look like?
Going into 2022, seeing that there would be two comps, I decided to try to match or beat my total from 2019, but only using variations. It was a blast and kept things fun. For the second comp, it will be back to the standard lifts. I would really love to be able to squat 5 plates, bench 365 and pull 600 at the comp. Time will tell. Regardless, it will be a good time.
What are you thinking about when you approach a big lift?
As a lifter, I am not an angry lifter, thinking of all those who have doubted me, and using it as fuel to make the lift. I am not an angry guy, and to try to lift this way doesn’t seem genuine for me. That being said, I do get psyched up before big lifts, but I have to stay focused on my cues, and have a positive mind frame in order to succeed. As I said before, music is a big deal for me, and if I had to pick one PR song, it would be “Purple Lamborghini” from Rick Ross.
What are your thoughts on the GGC as a whole?
The GGC has done a lot for my lifting to be honest. It has allowed me to not only run the conjugate programming, but also work in a peaking cycle, deloads, etc. and really pushes me doing all three lifts in one session. But most importantly, it keeps me focused. I always have something to train towards, to look forward to, and keep me physically active. My motivation is to stay mobile as long as possible. I just turned 42, so visions of grandeur and eyeing down world records is not my motivation. I want to be able to get up and down freely for as long as possible, to stay as healthy for my wife and kids as long as possible, and hopefully motivate my kids not to wait as long as I did to get into strength. I regret letting my prime years pass me by, and wonder where I would have been now, had I dedicated myself younger in life.
In addition to that, the GGC has really opened me up to a community of great people. There are too many to mention, but I have met some really great people through this competition, albeit virtual, and I am grateful for those people. We have enough internet trolls out there trying to bring people down, it is nice to see great people out there building each other up. I am always down to support good people and companies run by good people. For anyone to take time to like a video, comment on a post, or share one of my videos, I appreciate every one of them. I am just an old, fat guy trying to get strong in my garage. Hardly the best demographic for IG views.
For the second GGC competition in 2022, I am entertaining the thought of running the Juggernaut AI, but not sure it will fit my schedule. If not, I will run my conjugate training as I have been for years. Regardless of the outcome, I will be back for as many GGC’s as my body can handle.
Thanks for selecting me for this. I am humbled by it.
Thanks Ben!
You can find more from Ben and Coach X Man on his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notstrong__justfat/
