About Lee

Who is Lee Hayward?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words… Well, I’ll save you some reading and post up a few pictures…

Below you’ll see what I used to look like when I started working out (i.e. skinny teenager).

Then into my mid-twenties I managed to “bulk up” by following the “see food” diet. Meaning if I seen food, I ate food. That middle pic of me doesn’t look pretty, but packing on all that bodyweight actually helped me gain on a lot of muscle and strength in the process.

And finally in the third pic I’ve trimmed off the excess bodyfat to reveal a lean muscular physique underneath.

Lee Hayward's Physique Transformation Pictures

Granted the 3rd pic was taken after one of my most recent bodybuilding competitions. I don’t maintain that kind of ripped contest condition year round, but at the same time I don’t let myself get “fat” either. I usually keep my bodyfat between 10-12% off-season and then diet down to less then 5% for a contest.

These are my stats along with an overview of how I got involved with bodybuilding…

Stats:

Name: Lee Hayward
Age: 32
Home: Newfoundland, Canada
Height: 5’6 1/2″
Weight: 225 lbs. Offseason, 195 lbs. Contest
Started Working Out In: 1990
Started Competing In Bodybuilding: 1995

Best Lifts:

Bench Press: 445 lbs.
Squat: 525 lbs.
Deadlift: 530 lbs.

I got started working out when I was 12 years old after seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Conan movies. I was just blown away that someone could actually be that big and look like a real life comic book super hero. I was determined that I would someday look like that myself.

I would do exercises like push ups and sit ups in my bedroom before school each morning. I can even remember thinking to myself… “If I do this everyday until the end of the school year I’ll be as big as Arnold in the Conan movies.”

That year I asked my parents if they would get me a weight set for Christmas so that I could workout and get big. I can still remember how excited I was Christmas morning when I woke up and saw this HUGE box under the Christmas tree.

After ripping through all the fancy wrapping paper and colored bows there was a York 2001 home gym machine and a York barbell and dumbbell set. We set it up that very day and I did my first official weight training workout on Christmas day 1990.

From that point on I was hooked on weight training. I would workout daily with my little home gym, sometimes for several hours at a time. My dad has always been an active person his whole life and this really helped motivate me early on to workout and keep fit as well.

During high school I worked out consistently and I would read every bodybuilding and fitness magazine that I could get my hands on. I’d get bodybuilding and exercise books from the library. I would record every bodybuilding contest that was on television and watch them over and over again. I was obsessed with learning as much about bodybuilding, exercise and nutrition as I could.

While in my last year of high school I entered my first Bodybuilding contest, The 1995 Newfoundland Provincials, I was 17 years old at the time. Since then I have competed almost every year in bodybuilding competitions.

After high school I went on to do a computer studies program in College. This is where I got my interest in computers and the Internet. Keep in mind that when I started working out and competing there was no Internet. So I can remember sitting in the computer lab in the fall of 1997 when I logged on to the Internet for the very first time.

I asked the guy sitting at the computer next to me “how do you use the internet?”
He said “you go to yahoo and search for something”
So that’s just what I did and the first thing I searched for was “bodybuilding”

In the computer studies course that I was doing they taught a basic class on writing HTML and designing websites. And in January of 1999 I created my website www.LeeHayward.com. From then on I’ve focused on improving it, adding more useful information, and making it better each year.

Through my website I have had the opportunity to help literally thousands of aspiring bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts from all over the world with their training and nutrition programs. And over the past 12+ years www.LeeHayward.com has become one of the most popular bodybuilding and fitness sites online.

And most recently I was selected as one of YouTube’s Next Trainers and now I’m getting coached by YouTube directly to help improve my video channel and improve my online presence. You can check out my videos below to get more info about this program and how I got started as an online muscle building coach!