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Ignorance equals oppression. The less you know, the more they can control you. People disconnected from the truth or plugged in a false version are up for the taking.
There are two main ways to put humanoids in ignorance mode. The most obvious method is to deform reality as much as possible. That’s been going on since the beginning. Nothing ever is true in this world. As they say – history is written by the winners and so is everything else. There are lies everywhere – in science, in religion, in finances, in law, in business…etc. Many of the so-called facts are nothing but a hallucination inserted in our minds.
The second best way to render people ignorant is confusion.
The more complicated the task, the better. When things are complex, we give up due to exhaustion and frustration. This is what the ”Illuminati” is counting on. They want us lost.
The two methods are combined for the ultimate effect. The individual is deprived of knowledge and thrown in a 3D labyrinth containing only traces of truth.
The finishing touch is added by us – the people in the labyrinth.
Since we live in a dualistic world there are truths and lies in every theory. As a result, each of us has become a victim of combative dualism – we only see the truth in our concepts and the lies in other people’s beliefs. We fight each other with ego based methods over stupid ideas. That fight creates a binary world refusing to acknowledge the existence of a third option. The masters want it that way. By focusing our attention on the left and the right, we miss the center punch.
The world of bodybuilding is full of similar deceptions.
The noobs’ heads are filled with lies coming from movies, social media, forums, magazines and fairy tales told at the gym by the big brahs. The ignorance is still going strong despite the fact that there’s plenty of information refuting the mainstream bodybuilding dogma.
The world of muscle is swimming in purposely created complexity. The rules that lifters have to follow are endless.
You have to do the right exercises the right way for the right amount of sets and reps.
You have to hold the bar the right way.
You have to stay under tension for the right amount of time.
You have to follow the right tempo to hit all muscle fibers efficiently.
You have to lift heavy.
You have to lift light.
You have to activate the muscle and really squeeze it hard to put the fibers into muscle building mode.
You have to take the right amount of protein, fat and carbs.
You have to do the right number of workouts because otherwise your growth demands will not be taken seriously by the gatekeepers of muscle heaven.
Those are only some of the requirements. The list is a lot longer and grows daily.
Over the years every guru has come up with his own growth thesis. The high number of theories creates a world of confusion serving the mainstream industry all too well.
The noobs a.k.a. the people who spend the most money on supplements, training programs, books, suits, magazines, personal trainers and overpriced online courses have to be kept in a confused state and milked properly over and over again. The longer they stay in the land of dreams, the more money can be collected.
But is this muscle game really that complicated?
Do we need so many theories?
Not really, but to recognize the truth, you have to spend a lot of time in the labyrinth and hit your head multiple times. Only then you can see that all it takes to get out is to open your eyes, look around, listen and fight.
Every Guy with Big Muscles is a Professor
Every muscular guy is now a professor who knows all there is to know about muscle growth. Big bros hold the secret and can give it to you if you just play by their rules. Since they are big and you are small, you have to listen. You are the poor guy, they are the billionaires.
This reminds of the get rich quick books supposedly written by wealthy billionaires who “want you rich”. In reality, those guys couldn’t care less about your wealth and their books are actually written by ghostwriters.
The ghostwriters provide quality writing for cheap whereas the businessmen bring the face and the publicity.
Do you really think a billionaire would lose time and effort to write a sugar coated self-help book for people working minimal wage jobs? Hahaha. The guy just founds a fool and makes him write a book filled with cliches such as:
Wake up early and work.
Don’t watch TV.
Don’t buy expensive items you don’t need.
Work hard.
Be patient.
Never give up.
Be persistent.
Mute the haters.
Learn to live with less.
The principles found in similar books could indeed be useful and may even help you get ahead, but you will never join the big boys’ club.
The world of muscle is no different. The books and videos on muscle building contain the same old politically correct advice – lift hard, eat right…pray. And since all popular bodybuilders have big muscles they can play the role of a professor. Their body is their degree. They have it and you don’t.
“Let me tell you how you grow,” says the big guy in the gym and starts unveiling his broscience. “If you want a big chest, you have to place your elbows in this position when you are benching.”, “If you want big legs, you have to pre-exhaust them with leg extensions and then hit them with compounds movements.”, “If you want to get big, eat more.”
The bigger the guy, the harder it is to refute his claims. As long as the person spreading the theories looks muscular, people would believe him and do whatever he asks. If he says that the key to big biceps is drinking urine under the moonlight and dancing around an orange tree, some will do it.
Trust Fund Kids Teaching Others How To Be Rich
Bodybuilders and big dudes on steroids remind me of trust fund kids teaching others what it takes to succeed in business and amass wealth. When you are a trust fund kid, the money behind your back serves as a safety net and/or a booster. Imperfections in your plans can easily be fixed with dead presidents. If a business is failing, you can “patch it”. When you are not a trust fund kid, failure equals death. There are no safety nets.
Muscle growth operates the same way. Guys on steroids have a trust fund which allows them to develop all kinds of ridiculous ideas and call them “muscle building wisdom”.Without their safety net (drugs) those guys would be just as broke as the average person.
Below you will find some of the most common lies you will face in the labyrinth.
Thank me later.
Lie 1: Muscle Activation Equals Massive Muscle Growth
Bodybuilding trainers like Charles Glass and his apprentices say that training is all about squeezing the muscle properly and feeling every “motherfucking fiber” during each exercise. You should be able to sense how the muscle tightens and fills with blood. Muscle building wizards call this muscle activation.
The feeling is wonderful. You feel like you are targeting the muscle and subjecting it to your desire to grow. You feel like you are winning. You feel like the growth safe is about to click and open in front of you. Wait! There’s a catch.
The catch is that muscle activation does not equal muscle growth. It’s simply an indication that a specific muscle is working at the moment. Therefore, muscle activation is good when you are learning how to do an exercise properly, but it’s not a growth factory by any means. For example, if you do triceps extensions and feel them only in your elbows, you are doing them wrong.
Nevertheless, the fact that you don’t feel a muscle working does not mean it’s not working.
Right now I am writing this text using my forearm muscles intensely (I am mad at the world again.) Do I think how to activate them? No. I just type and know for certain that they are working. If you are doing a movement requiring the recruitment of a specific muscle in order for a bone to move, how in the world are you going to deactivate it? For example, how will you deactivate your biceps during curls and use only your brachialis and forearms to bring the weight up? Is that even possible? No. It’s not.
During my permabulking journey, I experienced a hamstring injury. It was caused by months of squatting heavy. Guess, what? I never forced myself to feel my hamstring during squats, and yet I got an overuse injury without “activating” them. The reason is simple – you can’t do a back squat, especially low bar, without the help of your hamstrings.
Honestly, I used to obsess over muscle activation too, but there was no need for that. As long as the motions you are performing are correct, the right muscles will be working.
One thing is certain: natural bodybuilders are not small because they “use the wrong muscles”.
If a guru says otherwise, he is a liar selling glute activation programs.
Lie 2: Higher Training Frequency = More Growth
When people watch the motivational videos of CT Fletcher they don’t realize that the right hemisphere of their brains (the creative and emotional one) is under a heavy attack. The editing of the video, the voice of CT and the music put you in a trance. The body begins production of happy substances, and the impossible looks possible. This opens you for the technical message of the video according to which overtraining is a homoerotic myth.
Overtraining is not a myth. Training every day is fine when you are working on skills, but bicep curls are not a skill. They are an exercise that works the biceps. The biceps needs time to recover. That recovery is a cold biological process similar to gravity. It does not care about your wishes or virtues. Eventually, the lifter learns that when constant joint pain and soreness settle in.
The reason why higher frequency is advertised so often is that it’s marketable and makes you feel like you are training harder, but in reality, you are either doing a bearable workout that can be performed daily or setting yourself for future failure.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no magic around daily training. You can certainly achieve the same results with a less sessions. Often people who train every day just spread their current workload over the course of a week. The process is similar to planning out your budget. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but at the end of the week, the amount of work done is still the same. Does it really matter in the long run whether you did all the sets for the week in a day or saved a few for every training session? There are certain benefits to both methods. In the first case, you get the job done, go home and allow your central nervous system (CNS) to have a longer recovery. In the second case, you improve your CNS and body efficiency by rehearsing every day. The choice is yours, but the final outcome is pretty similar. It’s all about personal preference.
At the end of the day, higher training frequency does not equal more growth nor more strength gains. You can certainly speed up the adaptation process with more training, but there’s a point beyond which you are simply wasting your time and risking regression due to injury or overall fatigue of the body and the central nervous system.
Lie 3: The Key To Growth Is Doing High Reps and Getting a Pump
“Of course, I am not big. I am not training for hypertrophy. Fuck high reps,” said HarryTheBicepsFlexKilla, got under the bar, did 2 shaky reps and immediately sat on the chair next to the squat rack. His legs were screaming: “15 minutes of rest or riot!!!!!”
Before I was just like Harry.
When I first joined a gym, I was a brainwashed low rep zealot. Once I realized that my system was failing miserably, I switched to high rep bodybuilding training. I was chasing the burn and pump all the time. I was I up for a big disappointment. At the end of my high rep journey (mainly HIT and Serge Nubret’s pump routine), I saw the same muscleless brah in the mirror. At that very moment, I understood that the gurus who say that pump routines will make you big are nothing but liars.
Trying to get big through pump and burn is the equivalent of trying to get smarter by playing Sudoku until your head hurts so bad that you need to take a nap. It makes you feel like you are doing something, which is great for gurus selling pipe dreams, but the final result is still the same emaciated natural you were before.
Lie 4: HIT is a Natural’s Best Choice
Since the beginning, people have been saying that a natural cannot train with the volume of juiced bodybuilders performing 10 sets per body part. To many Mike Mentzer’s HIT is a solution to this madness. Sorry, guys, but HIT is nothing but the other extreme – little volume and infrequent training. Even if you are taking all sets to unreal muscle failure with the help of assisted repetitions, one set every 10 days is nothing unless you are deadlifting. The body can do way more.
HIT diminishes your training capacity significantly. After each workout, you are sore because the long recovery periods throw you into a short period of undertraining. If you are training a muscle directly only once a week or every 10 days, the next morning it will be sore almost every time. Conversely, if you train more frequently, you won’t be as sore after the initial adaptation phase because the muscle is constantly kept in fighting condition.
I have to admit that HIT appealed to me in the beginning. Mike Mentzer presented it very well and I wanted to believe him. I remember doing various super slow ultra burning triceps extensions, thinking I was finally on the road to exceptional growth. I also liked the confrontation between Mentzer and Arnold. Needless to say, I was rooting for Mike. Sadly, both methods are just like the political parties – neither is 100% honest and pure. We all know how Mentzer and Arnold’s crew built their bodies.
And yet there is still a large amount of people known as HIT Jedis who do slow funky exercises on machines, thinking they are training “smart” when in reality they are simply chasing the burn in a different way. Those would be the clowns who sit on the peck deck machine and do super slow reps until they start shaking and breathing heavily. That’s a nice way to train your slow twitch fibers and improve your pain tolerance, but babies, don’t expect to get big or strong that way. Besides, it would be better to focus on more athletic skills. Life would be funnier. I promise.
I don’t like the techniques used to get to ultimate failure either. What’s the point of assisted reps and forced negatives? Whoever told you that you have to beat the hell out of your muscles every time lied. But since we live in a world of extremes, we want to believe in this madness. We want to post #muscledestruction on our social media, don’t we?
Lie 5: Gymnasts are Big and Training Like Them Will Make You Big
Let me guess. You are one of those guys convinced that bodyweight/gymnastic training will make you look like a monster in the upper body. I was just like you once. Ten years ago, I bought into the “ring training will produce a monstrous effect” spam. Guys like Coach Sommer, Ido Portal, Bar Brothers, BarStars, BarWhatever sell it very well, don’t they? As always, there’s a catch.
First, most gymnasts are not big.
Let me repeat that again – most gymnasts are not big.
Did you watch the Olympics? I did.
Who won the overall? Kōhei Uchimura. How big is he? 5’3” @ 121 lbs. Does he look like a massive monster to you? Sure, he has insane upper body strength and some biceps, but does he really look big to you ? He has poverty legs compared to bodybuilders and fitness models. Moreover, he carries a lot less mass than many bar stars such as Lazar Angelov and Hannibal for King in his prime even though he is a million times more advanced than them in bodyweight training. The difference in skill is like comparing a beginner pianist to a maestro. How is that even possible? I thought that malteses and iron crosses on rings were supposed to make you a freak of muscle. That’s what the guys selling gymnastics training told me. I guess they lied. I guess pinning in street workout > iron crosses and friends.
In short, gymnasts are short dudes who train their whole lives for extremely difficult acrobatic skills. They also have crazy upper body strength and lower body explosiveness, but in reality, they don’t carry as much muscle as you may think. Their looks are also very dependent on genetics.
If you don’t have the genetics for mass, there is not an exercise in the world that will make you big.
Without the right genes, growth just can’t happen, but the advertisers of gymnastics training don’t want you to know that. They need you to think that their methods are somehow superior to everything else. They enter your brain by cherry picking gymnasts with big muscles and presenting them as the norm when more often than not those guys are simply an exception to the rule and have better muscle building genetics than the rest of the acrobats. Some gymnasts have 14 inches arms while others have 17 inches arms despite doing similar stuff. It’s all about genetics.
Another favorite myth of mine is that “straight arm work” bullshit. Many believe that straight arm work is a mechanism that can stimulate extraterrestrial muscular growth in the upper body and especially the biceps. Funny. Those guys forget that straight arm exercises are always accompanied by a ton of bent arm movements. Coaches often say that bent arm drills are needed to prepare the elbows for straight arm skills. A popular example would be rope climbing, which is as an elbow conditioning tool for future madness like iron crosses.
If a gymnast has to become super proficient at bent arm exercises before becoming a straight arm beast, can we really say that he gets his biceps development solely from straight arm work?
No, you can’t, but it feels magical and people listen.
You want to reach your biceps potential?
Just do curls and chin-ups. The rest is specifics.
Every guru is simply selling his product. One guy sells you gymnastics as the cure to skinny, while another one pushes kettlebells in your face.
Don’t buy into anything. Instead, do what Bruce Lee did – take everything useful and let the idiotic fanboys protect their dogmas, gurus and false concepts.
Lie 6: When I Lift X Amount Of Weight I Will Be Big
Many years ago I tried to do dips and pull-ups as a skinny skateboarder living on one waffle a day. I went to the local dip station and immediately thought that the damn thing is too tall for me. I was literally afraid to jump and assume the beginning position, but I did it anyway.
My arms started shaking like a belly dancer. I think I got 2 and a half dips. Maybe I had more in me but I was afraid that if I fall the bars will stab me under the armpits. Then, a few days later, I went there again and saw a guy do 20 dips in a row.
“Oh my God, I will be so strong when I can do 20 dips in a row,” I said to myself.
Technically, I never did dips consistently until two years ago, but I have definitely surpassed the 20 dips in a row mark. My last workout was 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,6,6,5,4,4,4,3,3,3,1 with 26.5 kg added to me, and yet I don’t look that much different. I guess I am bigger than 10 years ago, but I am also a lot older. Besides, I eat more waffles today.
The same has happened to me many times. When I deadlifted 225 lbs for the first time, I thought that when I lift 4 plates I will be a monster. One day I got to a little over 4 plates for 2 reps. I guess I was a hair bigger and a lot stronger than before, but the visual difference was not nearly as much as one would think. I know that many of you will say: “Wait until you lift 500 lbs and even 550 lbs before complaining.” Sorry, bros! I have no doubt in my mind that I will look exactly the same even if I reach those numbers.
That’s why I advise people to forget about that mentality. Getting stronger does not mean that you will also get substantially bigger.
Lie 7: Strength Carries Over To Everything
The gurus say that strength has a universal carryover to absolutely everything. They are playing dumb again.
Strength is great but very few sports are actually limited by strength. Most sports are based on skills. Only the world of lifting places so much emphasis on strength. Skill training will always be more important than strength training in sports regardless of what the dream sellers say.
Lie 8: Time Under Tension Will Make You Huge
Time under tension is one of the many variables created to explain why a workout fails to produce results.
“If you are not getting big, it’s because you are not spending enough time under tension.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Gurus talk about time under tension because it produces an incredible burn, which makes the lifter feel like his musculature is mutating. In the real world, however, time under tension is nothing but another alternative method to cause pain.
Ironically, you cannot increase your time under tension without reducing the weight, sets and reps. Heavy weights cannot be lifted when you are slowing yourself on purpose to feel the burn. If you are going to go slow, you are also going to go light. In other words, there’s a trade-off.
Another downside of purposely slowing yourself is that you are focusing too much on the slow twitch fibers, which have less potential for growth and are primarily built for endurance.
Lie 9: Nutrition Can Boost Your Testosterone Levels To The Point Where You Get Massive
Many attribute the increase of muscle mass among bodybuilders and lifters in general to the advancement of modern nutrition. But what kind of progress are we really talking about? If anything, there’s a massive regress.
The supermarkets are filled with fruity loops. Good food is difficult to find because it’s harder to produce and few people are buying it anyway.
There is no doubt that most of the modern diseases such as diabetes and cancer are caused by poor nutrition – primarily sugar. Some also claim that the decrease of testosterone levels in men is also a result of bad food. I agree, but there’s more. I think the test drop is mainly due to a cultural shift and overall lifestyle adjustments rather than waffles.
Consequently, many believe that once they start eating clean muscle magic will happen. A long time ago, I read a comment suggesting that a certain bodybuilder is big thanks to his high fat diet. According to some, high fat diets increase your test levels too. This may be true, but an increase does not mean a significant change. If I add 10 dollars to your monthly salary, it’s still an increase, but will it have a significant impact on your life? Those test boosting methods operate the same way – there’s an increase but it means nothing. People need to understand that you have to boost your testosterone levels into the orbit if you want to see visible muscular results. Neither food nor boosters can do that.
Back in the day, I tried the same thing. I even bought desiccated liver tablets as advised by the iron guru Vince Gironda. I went to the supplement store and asked for those magic pills. I expected that the bimbo there will think that I’d just been released from the crazy house, but to my surprise, she got out with a magic box in her hands. The bottle contained tablets made out of cows’ livers. I took the pills without thinking twice.
At the time I was bulking heavily and consuming between 3k-4k calories of good food. I added those desiccated liver tablets to my stack with great expectations. The combined effect? A bulking soldier in the mirror after a couple of months thanks to my high calorie intake. I never bought livers in the form of pills again. They did nothing for me.
A few years later, I got my hands on Gironda’s book – Unleashing the Wild Physique. Back then I still had hope. I was still convinced that there’s an exercise, a rep range…something that can get me real growth. Oh, baby! How I wanted that growth! I wanted it so bad that a fat kid looking from the side would have given me its cake easily.
To my surprise, the book was filled with images of wait for it – bodybuilders on juice. All of them. It was obvious. I felt stupid for buying into the nonsense of yet another guru. I mean, seriously? The guy advertises desiccated liver tablets and fertilized eggs, and yet his poster boys are taking horse shots in their rears. I’ve seen this movie already! Next, please!
Lie 10: There’s a Growth Recipe For Everyone
As you already know, I used to believe that there is a special growth recipe. There isn’t. Everything that you are going to hear are lies coming from juicers, their fans and gurus selling powders. They want to keep you in a constant search for a made up formula that breaks the limits. There isn’t one. The only thing close to a formula are the equations of growth.
The equation of growth for natural bodybuilders looks like this:
Growth = Genetics (bone structure + body chemistry + muscle belly length) + Nutrition + Training
The equation of growth during the Golden Era of bodybuilding was:
Growth = Genetics + Steroids + Food + Training
The current equation of growth in the modern bodybuilding world is:
Growth = Genetics + Steroids + Growth Hormone + Insulin + Synthol + Nutrition + Training
I guess that in the future gene modification will be added to the equation of growth.
Lie 11: Women Don’t Care about Big Muscles. They Want a Sensitive Brah.
“But women are not supposed to like big muscles,” said HarryTheBicepFlexKilla while flexing his girly arms in the bathroom.
That’s a lie too. Women like big muscles. What they don’t like are enormous muscles and the homoerotic behavior common for guys too focused on their appearance. Thinking that a good looking male body is not attractive shows unawareness. If a skinny boy adds some muscle to his frame and improves his posture, he will look more attractive in the eyes of the gazelles. They may tell you otherwise, but women are known liars saying one thing and thinking the opposite.
They will tell you that they want someone who understands them and is sensitive enough to feel their pain or something equally nonsensical while constantly checking out the shredded brahs on Tinder. Some do it without realizing, but they do it nevertheless. This has been proven a few too many times and should be obvious to you by now – good looking bodies attract the attention of females.
Think from the other perspective too. Fat girls with sagging bodies just don’t cut it for males. If you are a female hippo, consider yourself covered in mud when males look at you.
Appearance will continue to matter regardless of what the spiritual books say. Humans have an inbuilt sense of aesthetics. We know what’s beautiful and what isn’t. Our mouths may say otherwise but deep inside the truth remains unchanged. It is what it is.
Lie 12: Functional Guys Have Chosen Not To be Big
Many functional guys behave like they have chosen to stay small because of higher moral standards. Those would be the guys who make fun of your hypertrophy attempts while doing kettlebell humping. Those people are some of the biggest liars you’ll ever meet in this game.
The most comical about them is their alleged choice to remain small, pure and functional. Nonsense. Everyone wants extra muscle as long as it’s within reason. And yet those guys would tell you that they don’t do “bodybuilding stuff” because the extra bulk will slow them down and make them nonfunctional.
Please, stop! First, you have not made any choices. You are going to be small without or without “bodybuilding stuff.” Second, you are a liar. You want big muscles like a broken arm wants a cast.
Functional guys don’t benefit from being small. If anything, having a better physique will attract more clients. Yes! I said it again – good physiques attract people. Stop behaving like you were born yesterday. Stop trying to satisfy your ethics teachers. They are liars too. Everyone is a liar.
Lie 13: Progress Never Ends. Gaining Muscle Is a Perpetual Process
When you first start training, you think that the ride will continue forever. You add weight consistently and consider those who experience lack of progress losers who don’t try hard enough. You believe you’re special just like everyone else. You feel like you will be the one to finally break the records… naturally of course. You watch the motivational videos and feel like no one can beat you.
“I will show you how great I am,” you repeat.
The problem is that beginners do not know wisdom. This is a good and a bad thing…mostly bad, though.
It’s good because to reach the limits you have to be a little crazy and fearless. The more you think, the less likely you are to do something. As the wise men say: “Thoughts are action killers.”
You can always find a reason not to do something. Maybe the weather is bad. Maybe you are too old. Maybe it’s time for bed. Maybe there’s no money in it. Those arguments are like the stretch reflex that keeps you stiff in order prevent your muscles from stretching too much. The goal in both cases is to stop you from hurting yourself. But too much protection creates a sterile world and bricks in the wall. Many innovators look back and say: “I was crazy. Today, I would never do such a thing.” In reality, they got to where they are precisely because they were crazy once upon a time.
On the other hand, without wisdom you are often setting yourself for a total failure in the long run. When you are young and enthusiastic, a month seems like a year. You feel like you should be a totally different person after 30 days of consistent work. That’s because you know nothing. You have no experience, and your perception of time is that of a kid. When you are wise, you can see the bumps on the road from far away and avoid them. This is how you progress faster – not by increasing the speed but by keeping the tempo the same.
Progress works like this: at first, it’s easy. Then, you reach a hard obstacle that requires a little more effort than before. For a little while, progress restarts and continues smoothly, but this time, the period is shorter than before. Then, you reach another big obstacle that takes you a lot longer to overcome. The majority of the crowd gives up at this stage. Those who continue forward face more obstacles until they reach the special one.
The special obstacle is the boss from the game that you can kill only on a really good day. It’s the monster that says: “You will be fighting me for the rest of your life.”
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you never quite get to the point where you reach the next level. You are stuck with that monster forever. This is your limit. This is your end. This is your enemy. This is the highlight of your life.
Lie 14: Your Motivation To Lift Will Never Die
I thought that I will train until the end of time. I was wrong.
When I figured out that this muscle game is rigged in favor of the steroid freaks, I naturally lost my motivation. I had all the time in the world to train, but I didn’t have the most important thing – desire.
I felt zero guilt. Zero. I didn’t care at all. I felt like I was evolving and lifting was a childish activity behind me. Be ready for those moments because they will come.
However, I got back into lifting. I found a reason to push on even though I’d learned that the system is dirty.
My advice is to never quit if you can. If you feel like giving up, just take a break and switch the direction of your training. If you are a squat slave, stop squatting and go run a 5k. If you are a 5k guy, try squats. But even if you have to quit, don’t beat yourself up. You will be back. The drug is in you. Once you are infected by the lifting disease, there is no turning back. Sooner or later, you will enter the gym again.
Lie 15: Muscle Will Make You Confident and Alpha
That’s a partial lie. Muscle will indeed increase your confidence, but there’s a catch. The trick will only work if your body transformation is accompanied by an inner transformation.
Years ago I trained in a gym that was considered hardcore. There were many big guys. All of them were on steroids. One of the guys was a bodybuilder/powerlifter and insanely big. Last week I saw the guy on the street. He is still humongous. The way he was walking reminded me a muscle machine – one leg hitting the other, an enormous armor-like chest, a back built out of oak, posture of steel. And yet I knew that the guy lacked confidence. I could see it his eyes. He is probably more confident than he was before, but deep down inside you can still see his hesitation. That’s because confidence is way more than muscle. It’s part of your character. It’s very hard to build and requires more than a barbell.
Truth be told, there are things in life that build your confidence better than muscle mass. One of them is, of course, money.
Hate it or love it, money matters. As long as we are here, we have to play the fiat game and getting paid is part of it. Having money liberates your from a lot of problems and before all stops people from throwing all kinds of nonsense at you. Poor people have less power in this world. We can talk about spirituality all day long, but how happy are we when we return to the plantations the next day? Exactly. We aren’t. Some of the most confident people I have seen are rich dudes living a wealthy lifestyle. They are not likable by any means but have confidence because they don’t have to take it from anyone. Are they good people? I doubt it. Most of the moneybags I have met did something shady to get there or at the very least their parents did it for them.
Nevertheless, even money and muscle are not a guarantee that you will have unshakable confidence. Look at Rich Piano. He has a lot of muscle under that oil plus a decent amount of money as seen in his lifestyle videos. Still, he is not super confident. In fact, his need to tune up his body constantly reveals that he doesn’t feel fine in his own skin.
I am certainly not a confident person either. I am probably even worse than the average. What helped me get better are small successes here and there. Nothing builds confidence like winning at this game called life from time to time.
Lie 16: Naturals Go to Heaven
I used to believe that I am superior to others because I am natural. I considered every steroid user a cheater that deserves to burn in hell for eternity. I thought that I am the good son doing everything right and thus preparing his ascension to heaven. I thought that I had earned my right to go there by staying pure and clean. But all of this happened when the world was still black and white to me. I was convinced that the right choice is always clear. I was yet to be exposed to the dualism in this crazy place. Nothing is just good or bad. I am pretty sure that there are many steroid users who are better men than me regardless of how many times they pin their glutes.
Sometimes as naturals we get lost in our self-righteousness and miss the big picture. We don’t have a reserved place in heaven just because we are natties.
This does not mean that I forgive the fake natties. I don’t. I am a tired of people trying to be heroes when all of their gains are produced by synthetic hormones.
Lie 17: A Good Body Can Compensate For a Bad Face
The element that matters the most when it comes to looks is the face of the person. It ranks on top of everything else. No matter how many steroids you take and how much muscle you add to your frame, you can never compensate fully for having a monkey face. Having a nice body can help and makes for decent a consolation award, but it cannot hide the fundamental flaw.
I know that’s little harsh, but it’s true. The good news is that pretty is often subjective if not overrated.
Lie 18: Lifting Nirvana Exists
You think that when you get your first pull-up life will be awesome. You finally achieve one rep after losing 10 pounds of lard and doing horizontal rows for a few months. It feels awesome….for about a day. Now you want to do 5 pull-ups. You get there after a few more months of “tactical” programming. Life feels great again….for about a day. Then you want to do 10 pull-ups. You get there after a few more months of bulletproof tactical programming. Life feels awesome again…for about a day.
Life is a series of troublesome events that lead to a short moment of happiness and contentment. That’s why one of the only ways to feel somewhat fine is to be happy when you are unhappy. I am not talking about a made-up commercial-like happiness. You don’t have to smile to be happy. Many people who smile frequently are not happy inside. Meanwhile, there are individuals showing grumpy faces while glowing inside. This can happen only when you are on the right track in your life.
Real happiness is a combination of two things – joy and pain. The catch is that you have to find the pain you love. That’s the formula. Life is suffering. Therefore, the only way to feel in piece for longer periods of time is to earn your right to experience the pain you love.