TLDR: The physique/strength goals you have will most likely take a few years, not a few months. Sit back and enjoy the ride. You're going to suck starting out so keep going until you suck less. If you focus your efforts more on cleaning your diet instead of lifting weights then you win.
Btw this isn't the type of blog where I'll be quoting from literature. I pulled these facts from reputable books/articles. It iz what it iz.
Why hello there! I want to congratulate you on wanting to pursue lifting weights! It's super fun, provides endless health benefits and just downright awesome. I just want you know understand that the minute you start lifting weights you're going to feel forever small.
My younger days.
We all get into lifting for different reasons. I think the most common ones(in order) are:
Look good naked. Let's be real here, who doesn't like a muscular or ToNeD body. I hate that word, tone, it's such a buzzword to sell shit to women. If I hear another girl tell me that they don't want to get too jacked, lift too heavy and that they'd rather do 30 sets of hip thrusters every day, please GTFO. All the women who look toned lift weights. Like, a lot, heavy and often. That or they've been blessed with awesome genetics or have enough money to afford surgery. If you're a girl reading this and starting out, stop focusing just working on your butt and maybe, JUST MAYBE dudes will stop skipping leg day. Iron Jesus cries every time you don't work other body parts. Guys who lift appreciate a girl with an overall proportional physique just as much as girls who lift appreciate a guy's leg development. As much as I like a nice perky butt, I also really like a strong looking back. I'm sure we can all agree with that.
Feel strong. Perhaps this is more for guys. After getting deep into Jordan Peterson's rambles, he's enlightened me to understand some general themes of dudes: We want to feel useful, feel strong, and to be able to provide. Touching heavy ass weight is obvious. You must have some kind of physical prowess to squat, bench or deadlift. Feeling strong can also be associated with money, power or status too. In this case, we're referring to feeling strong as lifting heavy things.
#helf. Read it aloud. If it doesn't sound like health then I don't know what to do with you. I don't need to explain how it's a form of exercise and that exercise is good for you blah blah. Your overall mood, energy, sleep, and stress levels improve. Your diet will probably improve as well when you become more seasoned and realize eating 50 chiccy nuggies, drinking a large coke and having an order of large fries hinders your performance at the gym but not after a long night of having a good time. If you're on the heavier side, losing weight will reduce any knee pain due to all that weight that meat suit of yours has to carry around. Pre-diabetic? Aside from cleaning your diet, lift more weights and be more active. That increases insulin-sensitivity which is a fancy term meaning all those circulating carbs(like sugar, potatoes, rice, etc) will be used to fuel performance and recovery. Remember, no one ever regrets having worked out. If you did, you're either a troll or need to grow a pair.
This is Zyzz. Embrace him as your lord and savior. U mirin' brah?
My first inspiration was Goku in DBZ back when hitting Super Saiyan was a big deal, not SSJ x 9000 or whatever they came up with.
All jokes aside, I wanted to share some insights for beginners in the game. 7 years of consistency and counting, I think the advice I'm going to share is worth reading. By the way, I define a beginner as someone who hasn't put in a year of consistency of both training and diet yet. You read that right. Tough standards I know. With that said, stop crying and scroll down.
You mean all that time eating like shit while only working out on the weekends before the club doesn't count? Yes. At least for me.
The physique and/or numbers you want will take much longer than you anticipate.
A safe arbitrary time span I like to give people is about 5 years. Yes 5 years of diet and training CONSISTENTLY. Allegedly, according to science, the 5 year mark is when you've already filled out 80% of your frame. No I'm going to do all that fancy quotation shit because that 80% changes depending on which study you look at though it's generally accepted that around the 5 year mark seems to where you've made most of your gains. Depending if you have awesome genetics or not it could be much sooner than that. Genetics play a huge part in how big, shredded and strong you'll get. Don't play the "my genetics suck" card if you haven't put in your 5 years yet. Whether your genetics are trash or not, your physique and/or numbers will still be godly among plebs, maybe just not world class bodybuilders or elite powerlifters. Think long term and enjoy the ride!
Spend more time in a caloric maintenance or a slight caloric surplus during the first few years of your career.
I wish I didn't spend so much time cutting vs bulking when I was younger. All I cared about was having my abs shown. Once I realized how small the rest of my body was, I dirty bulked for 4 months and cut for 6 months to get my abs back. This process was repeated for 2 more years. During those 3 years, I spent more time cutting than bulking which is counterproductive for the gains. Unless you're a true beginner, it's very difficult to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.
"You have to lose some aesthetics to gain aesthetics." - GokuFlex.
For those of you who are on a quest to see their abs for the first time, my hats to you. It's worth the huge diet change because not many people can do it. After you're done mirin yourself in the mirror, I highly recommend being on an extended maintenance/lean bulking phase for at least a year. That way, you give your metabolism a better chance to "reset" itself from "survival mode" to regular you. For those of you who just want to get big, it would be easy for me to tell you to eat at maintenance or be at a slight caloric surplus for 3-5 years. For the rest of you chasing aesthetics, I want you all to learn from my mistake and to spend MORE TIME EATING AT A SLIGHT CALORIC SURPLUS than cutting. A good starting point would be a 1:3. That is for every 1 month you spent cutting, try to do 3 months of maintenance or lean bulking. You're not gaining muscle when you're cutting. Muscle is a very tedious and taxing process for your body to make hence the time frame. As I write this, I'm undergoing a tentative 15 month lean bulk phase which may be extended depending on how much I weigh at the end of the year(trending up from 145 to 170lbs, depending how I look and then maybe drop down to 16
Follow a program instead of going into the gym without a plan.
There are many free programs out there in the interwebs, just google search them and pick them. You could also go to www.bodybuilding.com to find some. Not only will this save you so much time but the the structure will help with adherence. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/ is another great site for not only info but free programs! Otherwise you'll be wandering around the gym mindlessly doing a bit of back, some abs, max out on the bicep curl machine, and wait 3 hours for the barbell to be available so you can do 69 sets of hip thrusts as a "Finisher" because you saw your favorite Instathot doing it.
Bro splits are outdated unless you're maybe juicing. Just do Upper/Lower splits.
If you're training 6x week #nodaysoff #Irestwhenided doing body part splits aka Bro-splits, might I suggest a 4x/week upper/lower split? Not only is it more efficient with your time, but you'll be getting more overall volume and frequency for your body. In layman's terms, the upper/lower split will give you overall better gainz than a body part split. This is how it would look like in a week:
Monday: Upper (chest/back/arms)
Tuesday: Lower (legs/glutes/abs)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Upper (chest/back/arms)
Friday: Lower (legs/glutes/abs)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest
No need to super set either. You're welcome.
No need to train to failure all the time.
In fact, if the intensity, that is how hard the the exercise is, usually measured by how much weight you choose is around 1-3 reps shy of failure(when you can't do a perfect rep anymore), then you're pretty much solid. Training to failure all the time will eventually make it harder for you to perform well at the gym which could then subsequently lead to injury.
Sleeping more will help with fat loss and hormone production.
Also nice skin. It's a big deal for people including me. Sleeping lowers your stress hormone cortisol while producing growth hormone, testosterone and leptin, a hormone that deals with metabolism. That stress hormone messes with your metabolism, partly why the longer you're in a cut or eating super low calories, the cortisol stays elevated which means you can't lose weight as fast.
Note: I'm an ER Nurse, not an Endocrinologist. Please spare me internet.
Don't focus on the latest supplements and spend exorbitant amounts of cash on them.
Supplements are supplements: They are not necessary at all. Don't be bamboozled by the marketing and the people bigger than you trying to tell you to take these pills so your fat can magically disappear or to help your testosterone. It's all trash. Most of your aesthetics/strength comes from proper diet and training. Like 95%. Supplements could comprise of 5% of your results. I thought it was fun and it made me sound smart when I heavily researched and bought supplements. Then I found the nutrition pyramid by Dr. Eric Helms, reevaluated my priorities and collected gains MUCH faster once I focused on diet and training. There will still be a large number of people who firmly believe in the power of supplements and while I respect them, I'll agree to disagree. Why spend so much time on something that will bring minuscule results versus understanding macros and training smarter?
The faster you clean up your diet, the faster you'll see the aesthetics.
Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym blah blah blah you've heard that BUT IT'S TRUE. Not only that but literally all the other parts of your body. Want to get bigger? Eat more. Want to get shredded? Eat less. Want nicer skin? Eat more fruits/vegetables(anecdotal from my own experience but hey). Dieting is the hardest part. Focus more time fixing the diet versus spending 5 hours at the gym skipping legs and you'll see faster gains. Lifting weights is the fun part, you're not bullshitting anyone.
Don't skip leg day. Don't just do glutes.
Nobody likes a a guy with chicken legs. Ladies, you're more than just your ass. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
If you don't like to lift then that's ok! Find something else you like to do and stick with it.
Adherence > everything. If lifting weights isn't for you but you want to stay active, there are literally so many other activities you can try. You can still have a sick ass ToNeD body doing other things that don't involve carrying heavy ass weight.
Or is it?
I think that about covers everything. Let me know I've missed anything else for beginners. Thanks again for reading and I'll see you guys next time!
Be sure to check out my other blogs with regards to either seeing life a bit more profound or understanding the nuances of fitness deeper. If you loved this article, please support me by sharing it with your friends, liking it and/or dropping a comment!
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