Hi, I’m Niklas Lampi
Here’s a little bit about me:
I’m a fitness author, YouTuber, certified personal trainer and nutrition consultat with an obsession for physique development (which basically means creating a lean and muscular physique.)
Besides running this website (Iron Built Fitness) I also have a YouTube channel under the same name that you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9OYOj013_G3w-msSIbyoA
As somewhat of an extension to this blog in the fitness niche, I also run a blog about bedrooms, bedding and sleeping environment, which is called “The Bedding Planet”.
The main reason why I built The Bedding Planet is because over time that I’ve been learning about fitness, I’ve found out that sleep is one of the most important aspects for building a great looking and healthy body. And I realized that the environment in which we sleep largely impacts the quality of out sleep. So, if you’re interested in improving your sleeping environment and in doing so taking your sleep to the next level, you can learn more about how that here: https://thebeddingplanet.com/about-us/
I also run a website named Weight of Stuff where I write about things surrounding what things weigh, everything from top “xx heaviest things in the world” to “how much the moon weigh”. If you want to read more about that site you can do so here: https://weightofstuff.com/about/
Furthermore, together with my girlfriend and brother I also run a website named Pocket Pet Central, on this website we write about guinea pigs, gerbils, chinchillas etc. This is a big interest of my girlfriend so I’m mostly helping out with the technical part of the site. If you want to read more about that site you can do so here: https://pocketpetcentral.com/about-us/
Okay, so that’s a little bit about my current interests. Now let me cover the story behind me finding fitness and what fitness means to me:
My story finding fitness:
In 2014 at the age of 23 I officially began my fitness journey after many years of struggle and depression.
I didn’t always have a lean and muscular physique. In fact I used to be skinny fat, weak and ashamed over my physique. I used to look like this:
And now I consistently look more like this:
Okay so why did I change?
It all started when I got so tired of the way I used to live, that I just had to change.
During my mid teens I struggled. My father became an alcoholic and my mother had bad self esteem and couldn’t leave him. I got stuck having to see my father almost drink himself to death in 2009.
This was so turbulent and stressful for me that I had to get away, I couldn’t take more of my family’s misery. I just had to escape somewhere, and like most teenager at that age, I was interested in playing video games. And guess where I fled to.
For years I did nothing but play video games, eat junk food, smoke cigarettes and never exercised.
I hid myself from the world during a time in my life when I needed guidance and support by family, friends and mentors. And more importantly during a time when I should have stayed active in order to grow up into a strong and confident man.
A few years went on…
Then as I hit my early twenties, suddenly I were supposed to have responsibilities, have a job, be able to support myself and all of that grown up stuff you know. But I just had no clue of how…
I remember that I had the confidence and social capacity to stay in a job for 2 whole weeks, 2 weeks! That was the longest I managed before I got so anxious I had to flee from there as well.
This led me to loan money, just to have food on the table and a roof over my head. But, what I didn’t bother to even care about was that loaning money actually meant me having to pay it back, with interest… But, the fact that I would end up in financial depth felt easier than having to tackle my life.
For years I was depressed, poor, out of shape and broke. I don’t know if you can relate to this? But if you can, then you know how much it SUCKS to be at this place.
Fortunately I hit rock bottom. Yes, fortunately, because as the saying goes: “You have to hit rock bottom in order to start moving the other way”.
My rock bottom was that I started to drink a lot of alcohol to numb my feelings, and that’s when I came to a realization; I’m turning into my father, which scared the living hell out of me…
I remember saying to myself, I’m not him, I’m myself, I’m still young and I have the chance to go my own way! So, out of pure desperation I found it, the thing that would change my life forever.
Yes, I found Fitness…
I remember that there was something about building my body up that seemed so appealing.
And when I started to feel and see my body going through the initial transformation of looking better and becoming stronger, I knew for certain that there was something there, people always said that working out is great for your well-being, but it wasn’t until I felt it myself that I got the “aha… this is what people mean” moment.
I tried all kinds of training, everything from long distance running and Crossfit to powerlifting and weightlifting.
And that’s when I finally found it, my true passion in life; which is the process of building an incredible physique, a physique that I can be truly proud of. In fact, achieving a lean, well defined and muscular body boosted my confidence and self esteem like nothing else.
Getting compliments like: “wow you look amazing!” feels, well I’m not gonna lie, totally fucking awesome. But that’s not all, it goes a lot deeper than so. You see, building an amazing physique isn’t just about the looks and the aesthetics, even though that’s great too.
Building an amazing body means that you have accomplished something very few people do. So, when I did, my mindset shifted and it felt like I could conquer the world, nothing seemed hard anymore!
Not only that, it also taught me to fall in love with the process of constantly trying to improve myself, to become better, to become the best version that I could be, not only at fitness, but in every aspect of my life. I never feel more alive than when I’m learning and doing something that will take me one step further in the direction that I want to go.
Also, since I grew up with an alcoholic father, and had a lot of experience with people using external sources to numb their feelings, myself included. I’ve made it my life’s mission to stay totally natural, and when it comes to fitness, this includes staying away from steroids.
So, in order to build the best physique possible as a natural trainee in a world where the information is dominated by unnatural influencers and athletes, I had to look for something different. (And no, I’m not saying everybody is unnatural, but a lot of people are.)
Not only that, since my life had been so turbulent and stressful I needed something that was simple, easy and actually enjoyable to stick to.
That’s when I started to read blogs, articles, books, watching YouTube videos, and listen to podcasts from sources that I believed trustworthy in the science based community.
I just had to learn the truth about training and dieting to build a great looking physique as a natural trainee, while also making the process as easy and enjoyable as possible.
I found that achieving an incredible physique doesn’t have to be hard, I also found that so called “fitness professionals” has a tendency to complicate things just to sound smart about what they’re trying to sell. But the only thing it does is making the process of getting an amazing body so much harder than it has to be.
That’s why I’m doing this. I want, no let me rephrase that; I need to help you build an incredible physique, boost your confidence and set you out to be successful on your own journey in life. In fact, I’ve made it my obligation, duty and responsibility to help people, perhaps you, transform not only your body but also your whole life for the better. Because if I’ve felt bad, certainly other people do as well. And I truly believe that fitness is the start to something great, and I believe that’s true for everyone.