About Me Deep Dive

Wiener Neudorf · 1999 · Training Begins · Under 50 kg

I started training in 1999 in Wiener Neudorf — as a student, under 50 kg.
Around 2001, I moved to the strength centre in Vienna Donaustadt.

We trained in standard gyms with standard plans — and the results were mediocre. Around us, we saw others making progress — sometimes with means that were never an option for us. But the discrepancy drove me. Why does it work for them and not for us? So we searched. Relentlessly.

I had two very close training partners back then, both from the Baden district. We trained together, pushed each other and didn't let each other quit. We stood in the gym with stopwatches and wrote down every set — logged, analysed, adjusted. It didn't make us popular. The others in the gym gave us grief. We kept going.

Typical Arnold-style volume training didn't work for any of us. Too much fatigue, too little growth. Then we found the principles of Mike Mentzer in the online community BBSzene — one of the largest German-speaking fitness forums of the early 2000s. Heavy Duty. One set to absolute failure. 60 seconds concentric, 60 seconds eccentric. Super Slow. After that the session was over — 10 to 15 minutes. We were coached by experienced members of the community, and coached others in turn. I eventually moderated the Hardgainer and HIT sections of the forum.

The Kraftsportzentrum of Franz Mares in Vienna Donaustadt then became my home. Not the nearest gym — but the right one. There I trained with serious athletes, we attended powerlifting competitions together, and there the community emerged that shaped me as a coach and as an athlete. We educated ourselves, exchanged knowledge, kept refining — until I developed a system that truly works for this body type.

In 2004, I lost my brother. That shifted a lot of things — including my focus on training. But training has always remained part of my identity. It carried me through that time and made me stronger. Twenty years later, I made the decision to found a company, and in 2025 Hardgainer Performance Nutrition® was born. Health is the one thing you cannot buy back. That principle guides everything we do to this day.

Early 2000s · Trial and Error

The supplement market of the early 2000s was opaque. A lot was promised, little was verifiable. We tried everything anyway — every booster, every amino acid product, from glutamine to creatine to the mass gainers of the time. Tuna and eggs in the shake. Anything that had calories and went down halfway. It wasn't enthusiasm — it was necessity.

On the side, I ran an eBay reseller shop for supplements — those were the days before social media, before any kind of market transparency for the end consumer. Through thousands of euros in self-tested products, I learned what works, what's well tolerated, and what was simply marketing.

At 18, I wanted to open the first supplement shop in the SCS — the shopping centre near Vösendorf, basically around the corner from Mödling. Because even then I was convinced that supplements can close the gap — if you have the right ones. It never happened. But the idea never left.

On holiday, I had my supplements with me. Always. No matter where. This obsession with the subject eventually brought me to the point where off-the-shelf products were no longer enough.

So I started developing my own formula. Not because there's nothing good on the market — but because after 25 years of self-testing I know exactly what works for hardgainers and what doesn't. Clean sources, clear dosing, considered composition. That's the direction we're building in.