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Warren sophomore Cummings excelling as bodybuilder

Warren Area High School sophomore Austyn Cummings recently competed at the Mr. Buffalo BodyBuilding Championships at Niagara Falls Conference & Event Center and placed first or second in four separate divisions.

Becoming the best at a sport takes hard work, discipline, and focus.

Bodybuilding is no different – just ask Austyn Cummings.

The Warren Area High School sophomore recently competed at the Mr. Buffalo BodyBuilding Championships at Niagara Falls Conference & Event Center. Not only did he compete, he took first place in the Teen Lightweight division, first place in Men’s Novice Middleweight, second place in teen overall, and second in men’s novice overall.

Not bad for a teenager that just got into the sport a little over two years ago.

“I (first) got interested in lifting because one day I decided I wanted to start going to the gym and wanted to get bigger and look good,” Cummings said. “I was 14 years old. This turned into bodybuilding because I discovered a love for lifting and it became part of my life and what makes me happy. Lifting allows me to get my emotions out and not think about anything for those two hours of lifting.”

But bodybuilding isn’t just about lifting weights. In fact, it’s way more than that.

“The hardest part is the consistency of eating six or seven meals a day of healthy foods like oats, rice, potato, beef, chicken, or eggs,” Cummings said. “Lifting is the fun part, but the hard part is being able to have the self discipline to not eat junk. In addition, another hard part is most people don’t understand how someone could love lifting and some may call it dumb, but you have to block that out and just continue doing what you love and keep positive people in your lives that believe in what you want.”

Cummings also plays baseball and football at Warren. He says his bodybuilding training has helped him in those other sports, in the sense that he’s “stronger, and can hit the ball harder and further”.

Like those other sports, it takes time to prepare properly to compete for a bodybuilding competition.

“I dieted for 15 weeks and had constant changes to each meal I ate,” Cummings said. “I was eating six meals a day and my coach every few weeks slowly cut out fats and calories and carbs and kept protein consumption high so I could lose fat and keep muscle. I spent around three hours (a day) at the gym because I lifted for around 90 minutes then did 30 minutes of cardio and then practiced posing for the competition every single day.”

The strict preparation Cummings went through paid off with his success at the competition. But it wasn’t easy.

“Obviously I’ve had doubts but that comes with anything you do in life,” he said. “The main doubt was deciding if I had what it took to do a show. I was unsure of if I was big enough, and if I would be able to do the diet with school and baseball. While I was in my prep, I would have certain days were I didn’t feel good about myself because I was eating six meals of smaller portions of food than normal and I was hungry and that I played with my mind. Also, the fact that I went from ten percent body fat down to three or four percent for the show made me feel like I wasn’t big enough for the show, but in reality I was in the best shape of my life.”

Now that Cummings has been through the grind of preparing for a competition, he knows what to expect. And he wants to do it again.

“I absolutely will be competing again,” he said. “I plan on taking two years off and getting as big as I possibly can and then doing maybe the Pittsburgh Championships and then qualify there and do Teen Nationals which is a very important and big show in the USA.”

Cummings describes bodybuilding as his “passion”, and hopes to make a career out of it someday.

“I 100 percent believe I will be a great bodybuilder in my future” he said. “I have a great group of friends and family that push me and motivate me every day. I absolutely loved my 15 week prep even though it was not easy. But it’s something I enjoyed and that shows me there is no stopping now.”

Austyn said he wouldn’t have been able to compete so well on his own. He had a team of supporters backing him the whole way.

“I want to thank my coach Justin Barnes, Darren Cummings, Justin Norris, Steve Norris, my dad Don and mom Chris, my two brothers Bryce and Connor and my friends and all my family for the support.”

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