You can ignore this if:
a)You are over 30 and as much of a bad ass as you were at 25 (or whenever your peak badassness was).
b)You were never bad ass to begin with. Congratulations, you are starting with a clean slate. Skip to the second part of this post.
c)You are under the age of 30 and still full of opportunities and hard-ons.
For everyone else, male or female, you fucked up…probably.
I went to a reading by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, a couple weekends back. He mentioned that his characters have a central theme of “becoming what they were destined to be no matter how they started out”. Then he said something brilliant that stuck with me. I’m paraphrasing, but essentially it was something like, “Men start out following a path that they were told was correct: They go to college, they get married, they find a job, they have kids, they buy a house, they make money. But this only takes them to their 30’s. After that, you have no more path to follow, so you sit around being bored and thinking about who you were supposed to be and most likely never becoming that person”.
This got me thinking: As I get older, I see a definitive difference between the men (and women) that have chosen to accept their boring-ass lives, and the ones who continually strive to be better…to be a reinvention of themselves every 3 years. So, if you are noticing that there is a big space where your balls used to be, I’m here with your explanation (and solution).
1) YOU STOPPED COMPETING Think about it. You used to be competitive. Whether it was sports, grades, or trying to get laid, you were thinking about how to win. At some point you stopped caring about winning and started caring about “just getting by”. Oh, and watching your local sporty-ball team compete, doing a charity 5-K, or having the “best looking lawn in the neighborhood” doesn’t count as competing, you pussy.
2)YOU SETTLED FOR PHYSICAL MEDIOCRITY Call it “dad-bod” or “mom-bod”, but whether you admit it or not, you look like shit. Whether he or she admits it or not, your significant other thinks you look like shit. When did this become acceptable? If women and men quit settling for mediocrity in their mate, the demand for physical prowess would go up. Yea, this is a society problem, but the solution to all problems starts with YOU.
3)YOU STARTED HANGING OUT WITH OTHER PUSSIES Your friends are weak. They talk about “the way things used to be”. They have settled into no.1 and no.2 very comfortably. You are a product of who you hang out with.
I hang out with some bad ass people. Some of them can lift cars, some of them can knock people out, some of them can disassemble and reassemble an automobile in a weekend. You need cooler friends. Or, even better, you need to make yourself the example of badassery your friends can follow.
Thanks for making me feel like a pussy, Ethan. How do I fix it?
1) FIND YOUR “THING” Everyone has one. I know someone that does competitive flower arranging. No shit. That’s a thing. But she competes and wins awards.
If you don’t have a “thing” get one.
I’m biased because I’m a Jiu-Jitsu guy, but combat sports/martial arts, is great for beginners. The environment is generally friendly, and the opportunity to compete on a regular basis is there. It will also help you with your mediocre physique. But if your thing is chess, find a competitive chess league. There are competitions for pretty much any activity.
Note: this is not the same thing as a hobby. You need to be in a competitive environment in which you are challenging yourself. If there isn’t a chance for losing, it isn’t a competition.
2) LIFT SOME WEIGHTS, STOP EATING CRAP This seems simplified, I know. I truly believe that most of the world’s problems would be fixed if everyone lifted some heavy shit 4-5 hours a week and stayed out of the drive-thru. You need a plan though. Hire a good personal trainer that gets results with his/her clients. It’s worth the investment to learn how to get results as efficiently as possible. Remember, you will be doing this for the rest of your life. Read this for help: www.thestrongerlife.com/muscle-less-bs
3) BECOME A LEADER AND OTHERS WILL FOLLOW A magical thing happens when you start improving yourself: the people around you either do the same or disappear. Everyone has ass-anchors. These are the people that hold you back and keep you weighed down. The easiest way to ditch the ass anchors is to improve yourself. Your real friends will become apparent. The ones that keep you from your potential badassery will bond together and talk shit about you behind your back. It’s called jealousy.
I feel like things have gotten convoluted as far as what you REALLY need to do to build more muscle. Every day there is some huckster trying to tell you the NEWEST and QUICKEST way. Screw that. Here it is, plain and simple, in 8 steps.
1) Lift ALL the weights Yes, ALL the weights. Not just machines, not just free-weights, not just rubberized ones on a platform, not just your bodyweight…ALL the weights. You will not find any research that says one way is always better than another. You WILL find that variety is key to solid muscle gains and strength as well.
2) Lift ALL the rep ranges Yes, ALL of them. From 1-100. I keep most of my reps around 8-15, but I will hit a 1RM occasionally just for shits and giggles. I often program in sets of 50-100 reps as well. If you’ve never done 100 reps of squats, continuously, with 100 lbs, you’re missing out on one of life’s great moments in human survival. Using all these rep ranges also allows for using a variety of equipment, tempo, advanced strategies (supersets, drop sets, eccentric focus, etc).
3) Do A LOT of sets When Bryan Krahn was up for The Fitness Summit we hit 64 sets of arms in 45 minutes! He thinks it was only 40 because I lied to him and he uses Canadian math. We did 8 sets of 8 exercises with moderate weight in an 8-12 rep range. You know what it felt like when we were done? Like we did 64 mother-effin’ sets of arms! This is when programming your workouts becomes key. Nick Tumminello has a kick ass way of programming workouts that make them more efficient. I stole a lot of his ideas from Strength Training for Fat Loss and modified them only slightly for myself and my clients. Working out this way will also help with No. 5 on this list.
4) Eat ALL the food I mean food variety. Dudes and dudettes focus on eggs, chicken, and shakes. That’s cool, but you would have to eat a ridiculous amount of eggs, chicken, and shakes to get the calories to build quality muscle. Remember: more protein doesn’t equal more muscle. OPTIMUM protein intake is important though. Go for 2-3 GRAMS per KILOGRAM of LBM. This is obviously adjusted as your LBM increases. If you don’t know your LBM, you should. Knowing your body fat percentage and lean body mass is important for No. 5 on this list.
Equally important is food variety. You need the calories to hit your goal. Don’t know what that is? Go find someone competent (there are a handful out there) to figure it out for you. You don’t need to OVEREAT, just eat for your goal. Don’t overcomplicate this either. There are “strategies” and “systems” but if you just eat lots of quality food (and sometimes not-so-quality food), bust your ass with the weights, and you will gain muscle.
5) Don’t get too fat This kind of goes with number 4. If you are a dude, you can sit at 10% (generally six-pack worthy), if you are a dudette, you can sit around 18% and still build muscle. No need for those ridiculous bulking phases of the 90’s. After all, what’s the point of building muscle if no one can see it? If you are a fatty now, you might want to get on a cutting phase until you hit something closer to those percentages. I have not had a client yet that couldn’t maintain these percentages and add muscle at the same time.
6) Rest A lot of people fuck this up. We live in a society of energy drinks and stress. Program rest times into your life. Not just from your workouts, but life. I know…you’re like, Ethan, but…blah blah family blah blah work… SHUT UP! You watch too much tv! Shut it off and chill out with your own thoughts for a few hours instead. Take a walk. Commune with nature. Do some yoga. Whatever hippie shit calms your mind. In the end your pituitary gland, your muscles, and your brain will thank you.
7) Be patient Building muscle takes a long time. It is contrary to what your body wants to do. Muscle requires more energy, which requires more calories, which requires more hunting and gathering. It is against nature. Be patient!
Don’t focus too much on “6 week programs”. At most, unless you are on the Mexican muscle juice or brand new to lifting, you will get about 1 pound of muscle in 6 weeks….at best. Your first years lifting will be the years of your greatest gains. Take advantage of this. After 3 years, it slows down considerably. This is not a bad thing. If I continued to gain the same as I did my first year, I would be over 700 lbs. My grocery budget couldn’t handle it.
You know when people talk about working out as a “lifestyle change”. That’s not bullshit. If you are serious about it, you need to become workout guy or girl for the rest of your life. Does this mean balls-out every day? No. This means putting in the time though. I have been lifting for 26 years…the majority of my life. I am 41 years old and in better shape than most 18 year olds. But that’s the lifestyle I chose…to care about not being a fat weak slob. I want the other parents at my son’s school functions to stare. I want his friends to ask me if I can lift a truck.
8) Repeat for the rest of your life Consistency is key. Period. Done.
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