Have you ever thought: “That guy has it too easy! If I had his body, my life would be easier on all metrics!”
You’re right, even though that mentality is too defeatist and victim-like. In any case, I’ll help you eliminate that victim mentality.
Many of you realize the importance of a muscular physique, but some of you don’t.
However, these two groups have one thing in common. Chances are, you aren’t in the best shape of your life (but if you are, then hurray! It’s always good to get back to the basics).
Even if we don’t put attractiveness into consideration, there are many other benefits to a fit body. You’ll have a better hormonal profile, allowing you better energy levels, more control of your emotions, better baseline mood levels, a better sleep schedule, a higher likelihood of surviving an unarmed altercation, and an easier time carrying the groceries!
The list of benefits goes on and on, and the barrier to acquiring this asset (A Good Physique) is so low that anyone can acquire it with good effort and some time investment.
“But mister, I’ve already tried working out, and it’s not for me! I can’t gain muscle at all”, some of you might say, “My weight is still the same, and even though my strength increase, I’m still a fat fuck after years of training!” another group would chime in.
My response would be, to try harder.
“I’m eating at a high-calorie surplus/deficit, yet I can’t see any change in the numeric value shown by the scale, let alone any visual difference in my body composition!”
Bullshit, get a diet with a bigger surplus/deficit, and try again.
“My muscle-building genetics are shite! I have an ectoxenofuckshitmorph body blah blah blah, I can only get so big and my potential is bad as fuck.”
Garbage, if your muscles aren’t responding to regular training even when the 3 aspects I’m about to tell you about are in check, then there are alternatives you should try like increasing work volume even more, drop sets, and periodization.
In short, what I’m trying to say is that anyone can build muscles, and even if your max-potential natty physique won’t win you an Olympia, it will be better than what you currently have (and it’ll turn heads from time to time, trust me).
Excuses are excuses, and the key to thwarting them is to realize that you’re not a victim of your circumstances and that you can do something about your situation regardless of the possibility of failing short of some projected goals/dreams that you might have in mind. Get over your fear of failure, and join the ranks of the winners, now!
Alright, we’re done with the prep talk, and now it’s time to talk about business.
To build muscle, lose fat, and improve fitness and athletic ability overall, you need to take care of these three things. Nothing more, nothing less.
Training, Diet, Recovery.
You need a certain balance between all three to start seeing results. If you aren’t seeing results even after putting in the effort, then one or more of those things isn’t up to par.
- Training:
You need a certain minimal volume of training to start seeing muscle growth, and this minimal value differs from one individual to another. Up to a certain working volume, a maximum, where if you go over it, your muscles won’t recover no matter how good your sleep or supplement stack is.
So now we’ve established it, your training load needs to be between a minimum and a maximum. Both of which differ based on your body phenotype.
No matter what anyone on the internet might tell you, only you can find out for sure how much volume you need to get gains at all, and how much volume your body can recover from.
If you aren’t seeing any results, and you’re feeling energetic after your workout sessions most of the time, then consider increasing your workload.
If you don’t see any results, and you’re always feeling fatigued, and hardly able to go through your days no matter how much you eat or sleep, consider decreasing your workload.
YMMV.
Depending on your fitness goals, you’ll need different goals. For building muscle, there’s nothing like PPLPPLR (Push-Pull-Legs-Push-Pull-Legs-Rest). For strength, check out 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler. For calisthenics, check this out.
In any case, I’ll do a detailed workout program for building muscle in one of my next posts, so stay tuned.
If you want to learn more about workload and training volume, check Renaissance Periodization, link.
Now, we’ll talk about the types of people who struggle with the “Training” part of their fitness journey.
Most of them have the problem of putting in too little work. The only group that I personally found to put in too much work are those who’ve been working out for a while and want to compensate for a bad diet or sleep with more training.
So we’ll talk about those who work too little (shout out to y’all bitches, you need to harden up haha!)
We have two types of people here.
The Hardgainers (Ectomorph, built-for-running, too-lanky, twigs…etc, you get it.)
This guy trains too little, likely an “ectomorph” or a “hard-gainer”. Sure they might perceive their training volume adequate, or even great, compared to individuals of different phenotypes.
Even with a calorie surplus, if a muscle isn’t stimulated enough, it won’t respond, and the person might gain unnecessary fat instead.
The effort that would put someone, let’s call him person B, at an 8 for training according to the professional chart above, might only be a 3 for a hard gainer, we’ll call him person A, that’s why arbitrary comparisons in hard work aren’t a good measure for what’s happening.
Person A would need more than double the workload to achieve similar results, and subsequently, even more recovery than he was getting. The usual causes of such difficulties in building muscle would be having too many long-twitch muscle fibers (suited for endurance, takes too much effort to reach muscular failure), a lanky and long-limbed frame (needs more muscle volume to fill out compared to individuals with shorter and stockier builds).
Should Person A lament his luck, and drown in victimhood? Or make shurikens out of the cards he was dealt, and use them as assault weapons?
It’s his choice, and all I can do is help.
The Class Fatty (Endomorph, Thick-Boned, Schoolbus, Obesity-runs-in-his-family, slow-metabolism guy…, I’m sure many of y’all identify with this phenotype)
The same goes for this type of person.
Even if the diet is on point, and he’s on a good calorie deficit, he won’t get results if his training volume is inadequate. (By inadequate, I also consider only doing cardio to lose weight to be inadequate, you’re wasting a lot of muscle volume that you could keep otherwise!)
I get it that training is mentally tiring for you, but still, you can power through it, and I know many people who came out the other end stronger, better looking, and more confident.
You can do it, and I hope my words are the last push you need to get over your fear.
Alright then, let’s go to the second step that you should take care of.
- Diet:
I’m sure everyone knows that with training, comes the need to hit the calorie and protein goals.
However, not everyone is correctly measuring how much their body is consuming, or how much progress they’re leaving on the table by making careless actions that could otherwise be easily corrected.
For Calories, start with a surplus/deficit of about 500, then track your weight across a month while making sure to take pictures of your physique at the start and end of that month.
(Here’s an Excel sheet that you can use to keep track of your weight across 28 days, the weekly moving average is what should matter to you. If it’s not moving in the intended path, then something’s wrong.)
If you aren’t seeing any results, then consider increasing the deficit/surplus even further and tracking the weight and visual progress over another month.
For Protein, to keep it simple, get your bodyweight-in-pounds grams of protein every day. No matter if you’re in a bulk or a cut (a more in-depth post coming soon). Whey Protein is a supplement, so make sure to get the majority of your protein from actual meals to get other nutrients like minerals and vitamins.
Eggs, Milk, and Chicken Breast are your best friends here, especially on a budget.
If you fail to have an adequate diet, you won’t get any desired progress. Either you’ll gain strength at a slow rate with any improvement in muscle mass (On Bulk), or you’ll lose both muscle and fat at the same time, becoming skinny fat in the process (On Cut).
When on a bulk, shakes are your best friend. A liter of milk, one banana or apple, a hundred grams of oatmeal, some peanut butter, some chocolate powder, and go to town. A shitton of calories and a good protein for a good price too. You’ll get the most out of this shake if you have a small appetite, drink it at least twice a day.
If you’re going for a cut, diet drinks and sugar-free sweets are your best friends. I know y’all fatties like to binge-eat, that’s why instead of telling you to cut it all out immediately, we’ll do it gradually. While making sure to hit your protein goal no matter how, switch regular candies and drinks for sugar-free alternatives, and with time, try to decrease the quantity you eat each day. Results are guaranteed if you follow this method.
For Supplements, the only ones you should even think of taking are Whey Protein, Creatine, and Caffeine.
Whey Protein is optional, only use it to hit your protein goals if you can’t otherwise, not to be confused with actual food.
Creatine is semi-mandatory for optimal growth. When you first start taking it, do a loading phase; you ingest 20 grams of creatine a day for a week. Then, take 5 grams a day for the rest of your life. Doesn’t matter when you take it, as long as the time is consistent every day.
Caffeine is also good for optimal growth. The only preworkout you’ll ever need. Drink a cup of coffee half an hour before a training session, and you’ll be golden. Cycle off it once every three weeks. Three weeks of drinking coffee, one week away from it (Try to sync the off-week with your deload week, if your program has that.)
You can’t outrun a bad diet.
Even more so if your phenotype has it harder maintaining a fit body without micro-managing certain aspects of your daily life (The two phenotypes I mentioned above)
While I know that there aren’t true Ectomorphs or true endomorphs for that matter, some individuals have higher shared traits with a certain phenotype other than the other two. (Ecto, Endo, and Meso are the three phenotypes I’m talking about, the mesomorph being the most average, having the best of both worlds, and having the easiest time building and maintaining a muscular physique).
In any case, if your diet is bad, expect bad results.
Don’t believe for one second that what you need is a better stack of supplements. You should get your macros from regular meals because other than calories and protein, other things matter too.
- Recovery:
This is where most people fuck up, even intermediate to advanced trainees. With the twenty-first century hustling mentality and the rat race, people are eager to sleep less than they should/need and to exhaust the CNV to work as a slave to help someone else achieve their dream, five days a week, 9-to-5.
There are things worth sacrificing your sleep for, but not a job. If you’re truly working 9 to 5, then you shouldn’t have trouble getting at least eight hours of sleep.
So, where’s the problem? Why are you sleeping so late at night?
You know it, I know it. You’re wasting your time on shit that you don’t need, just to escape your miserable day-to-day existence. Pure escapism.
Whether it’s doom scrolling (extremely bad), drinking with coworkers (hey, drinking is better than doom scrolling! change my mind.), reading fiction (better, but still eh) or even chatting to that one lady too late into the night (you’re making some progress, but text women only for logistics yo!)
All in all, you’re wasting precious sleep and recovery time doing things that you wouldn’t thank yourself for doing a week away from now, let alone ten years later.
Sure, mingling with coworkers is extremely important to ensure a hassle-free work life and higher chances of promotion, but you should still value your time. Go to events with your coworkers where important power players are going to be present, not to the events where Maggy brings along her beta-orbiters to a pub where they pay for her expensive beverages.
Do you know the Pareto Principle? Twenty percent of efforts bring in eighty percent of the results. If you’re sleeping five hours everyday, for a year, then you’re putting in zero effort in your recovery aspect of training. Sure missing a full night of sleep a couple times a week won’t have that much impact, but it shouldn’t be a regular occurrence.
Spend twenty percent of the effort you could on mingling with your coworkers, and it’ll still be enough (because, frankly, if you’re reading this blog, then you’re way better than that job anyway, and I’ll help you do better if you’re willing.) Give your lady twenty percent of the attention you can, and she’ll love you for it (They love a man with a mission, and she’ll slide into your frame once she realizes that your life doesn’t revolve around her.
When it comes to reading, only read the top twenty percent of fiction, by being more selective about what you read. Consider reading some non-fiction for a change too. As for doom scrolling, cut that shit out.
With these simple changes, you’ll find that you have enough time to sleep, and your central nervous system will thank you for the extra energy you’re saving.
If you’re good at organizing your time, then you’ll be able to have some interesting hobbies too in that extra time! Like a martial art, climbing, fishing, hiking, playing a team sport, swimming, and so on. (And if your time-organizing skills are bad, I’ll help you with that in another post soon).
If you do it all according to what I told you in this post, then you’ll have a head-turning physique in two years of hard work; I guarantee it.
For more details concerning the components of this post, stay tuned for future posts.
Send me a DM for inquiries and questions.
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