David Laid - Fitness Model, Facts and Life

Losing his father at the age of two, David Laid grew up with self-confidence issues which were further intensified by the bullying he suffered during his formative years. Moreover, at the age of 14, he was diagnosed with scoliosis, a disorder that causes an abnormal curvature of the spine and can even lead to disability. Doctors advised him to start weight training to build more muscle mass. During this time, he determined to change his life by focusing on fitness training. At the time, he was a "frail, lanky, near emaciated teen" of 14 years, weighing merely 90 pounds.

He spent a lot of time researching YouTube videos about weight training and diet before he began his own journey. Initially, he only wanted to build self-confidence and become comfortable about his own body. He began exercising with the goal of muscular development, and soon fell in love with strength training, which has been an integral part of his transformation to achieve his dream physique.

He became an internet sensation after sharing his physical transformation on YouTube with the video titled 'David Laid 18 Month Transformation 14-15 Year Old', posted on December 13, 2013. He later posted an updated video on his transformation titled 'David Laid 3 Year Natural Transformation 14-17', which was uploaded on August 14, 2015 and has been his most popular video with 26 million views. Over the past six years, the channel has grown steadily and now boasts of a massive 620k subscribers. He is also quickly racing towards the 1 million followers milestone on Instagram.

The most common question any bodybuilder faces continuously is whether they made their physique naturally or are on steroids. It is no different for David Laid despite the fact that his early videos that made him popular specifically claimed his transformation to be natural. He has been asked about steroid use several times in the past and while he continuously denied it, various websites dedicated to fitness have taken it upon themselves to deduce from available evidence if he is telling the truth or not.

Interestingly, 'aretheyonsteroids.com' carefully picked out him licking his lips twice during one of his most popular videos while talking about steroids, claiming it to be a psychological evidence that he is lying. Moreover, he goes out of his way to repeatedly defend using steroids stating that it does not make one a bad person. He goes on to say that those steroid users should be condemned who sell products claiming to be natty and those competing professionally. Interestingly, he does neither. Finally, he wore a 'Half Natty' hoodie at the Arnold Classic expo, which many interprets as either he was on steroids at some point of time, or he took low doses of steroids.

Nevertheless, most of his critics agree that he doesn't have any obvious steroid symptoms and it is possible to achieve his physique naturally. It is important to note that in an interview to 'MEL Magazine', his mother mentioned specifically that she doesn't want him to get into steroids.

David Laid was born on January 29, 1998 in Estonia, a Baltic country on the border of Russia and Latvia. At the age of two, he lost his father in an accident after he fell from a cruise ship that was docked at harbor. A few year later, his single mother moved to the US in search of a better life. The family, which also included him and his two younger brothers, settled in New Jersey. There, he attended Mainland Regional High School.

During his teenage years, he experienced a sudden growth sprout that made him very tall and skinny. Due to his frail figure, he had a very low self-esteem and was often the target of bullying. He was subsequently diagnosed with scoliosis when he was 14 but eventually avoided serious consequences of the disorder with focused physical training. He played hockey as a kid, but quit playing to focus on training.