Your Ideal Body, or “I don’t want to get too big”.

Lately, I’ve been talking about my own journey in bodybuilding with others. Not by my own will, as I don’t really talk in detail about the physical transformation I’ve gone through in the last years. It’s not something I ever bring up by myself.

Mainly, this happens more than before because there was a huge change in my life a few months ago. I won’t go into details because who the hell cares, but let’s just say that whoever is writing my life decided I had grown too comfortable this season and decided to Shayamalan my shit. In the fallout of the big twist, I was left with a deep necessity to meet new people and rekindle old friendships I might have neglected. It’s extremely difficult for me, especially now that I’m older, but it’s something that I’ve had to do and have done pretty well.

Nowadays, when I meet new people, the first thing they see is a big hairy guy, and “what did you do to get big?” is a question that asks itself. Not because I’m so striking and monstrous, but because it’s an obvious ice-breaker in social situations. Now, like I said, I’ve also been busy trying to renew friendships with people who hadn’t seen me in years, when I was 100+ lbs smaller, inches shorter, and didn’t have a hair on my face (then, the question generally is “What the fuck happened to you?”, to which I like replying “A big wolf bit me”).

This leads to me having the same conversation and Q&A every time I find myself in a social event. I don’t mind of course; talking about bodybuilding to me is as fun as talking about movies, videogames or shooting the shit of any kind—I enjoy it. The only thing that bothers me is that these conversations seem scripted, so at one point it gets boring. I always get the same questions and I always give the same answers like a disgraced politician doing damage control.

Generally these conversations take place with people who aren’t as skinny as I was (because people who are as skinny as I was don’t like to openly tell a big guy “I want to get big too!”), but still either want to get more muscular or pretend to so we can keep talking without any awkward silences.

You know what’s the one constant comment?

“Help me out; I’d love bigger muscles! Just remember I don’t want to get too bulky, you know?”

It’s incredible how often people tell me this when they ask me, or anyone (it’s also a mantra in beginner bodybuilding forums), for bodybuilding advice. I would be surprised if the idea hasn't crossed your own mind as you read this blog. Hell, when I was helping my brother out when he opened his Crossfit gym, part of what I did was welcome prospective patrons and explain what were the goings-on in the Crossfit gym. Luckily for them, and my brother, “You don’t get all huge and bulky!” is an effective selling point.

The face of regret.

“Too huge” or "too bulky", in this context, implicitly refers to bodies like Phil Heath (pictured), Kai Greene, Ronnie Coleman, or any pro who has graced a FLEX cover in the last thirty years. This, as opposed to a lean but defined body you would find under the shirts of Mattthew McConaughey or that guy from "Drive". While I don’t share the opinion, I understand why the idea of being so muscular is unappealing to most.

Yes, there are a million misconceptions about bodybuilding, so why should I write a blog post dedicated to this one in particular?

Because a lot of people don’t want to start lifting heavy weights and begin their growth because they’re afraid they’ll get “too huge”. Now, if I take several steps back, I can more or less see why someone would ask this, but it’s still  hard for me not to find this concern extremely absurd. 

Let me explain.

All right, first off: you could purposefully cycle every anabolic steroid, HGH and testosterone shot for the next five years and you probably still won’t have that body you want to avoid. Nasser el Sonbaty didn’t reach 330 lbs accidentally; he worked extremely hard to get and maintain the body he had. Bodybuilding in that professional level is a 24/7 job that requires extreme care to exercise, diet, a lot of focus and of course the intelligent and controlled use of very specific drugs. It’s not something you acquire unless you really, really want it. And even if you really, really wanted it, it’s likely you won’t get there anyway.

Here's another way to look at it. Would you stop practising on your guitar because "I'm afraid I'll become amazing at it"? Of course not. Even if you wanted to, it's not likely you will.

So here’s what I like to ask. What exactly is the fear of people who want to avoid “getting too bulky”? That one day they’re gonna fall asleep after a huge meal and a beastly time at the gym, and then wake up the next day on a broken bed and wearing torn PJs because they accidentally hulked out of them overnight?

“Oh fiddlesticks!” they’d growl in a frightening new basso. “Now I gone done it! I got too big and ladies won’t want my bulky freak ass!”

"Cruel fate! What have I done to deserve this!"

See how absurd it is? Getting huge isn’t something that just happens suddenly or accidentally. It’s a very slow (though very rewarding) process. What does this mean? It means that your growth is going to be gradual and deliberate and you won’t gain a single pound unless you want to gain it.

Again, what does this mean? It means that you’ll always be in complete control of your body size and you’ll know exactly when you’re finally in the body you always wanted.

And the cool thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that figuring out your exact dream body is harder than you think. You never know how your perception of yourself and your wishes will change as your body does. Maybe right now you want to gain 10 pounds so you can look like an Abercrombie model, but you don’t know if in a year you realize that it’s a body like Thor’s what gets the ladies going, and you’ll now want to gain another 50 pounds. But what if during the two years it took you to gain those 50 pounds you grew attached to bodybuilding and you suddenly want to look like Lou Ferrigno.

Right now you don’t know what you do or don't want, but that’s a good thing because you’ll always be in control. And hell, if one day you realize that you no longer want to be big, you can always get smaller. It’s not a one way street. You’re not burning any bridges with every curl. Remember the “muscle turns into fat!” thing is the dumbest myth in the sport; muscle can’t turn into fat any more than gold can turn into a lemon cake.

TL;DR: The absurd fear of getting a body you don’t want right now should never deter your wish to get out of a body in which you’re already unhappy.

First Thing First: Supplementing, Resting, And General Tips.

Okay we’re here in the final “Bodybuilding 101” post. You’ve learned how to get and keep yourself motivated, how to eat, how to train, and finally we’ll learn how to properly rest to keep growing, and my views on early supplementation. After this, the posts I write will be a bit less focused on basics, but hopefully just as helpful for newbies as well as for more advanced bodybuilders who might be in need of a first, second or nineteenth opinion.

Supplements.

Here’s what I think about supplements: they are fucking awesome. No, seriously, they are. I’m going to be putting up quick blurb reviews in this blog because naturally not all of them are awesome, but they are—in my opinion—almost completely necessary to optimize growth.

Just not when you start out. This is kind of important and a piece of advice I will disagree with most other bodybuilders on:

Don’t start on any supplement for the first six to eight weeks of your training.

After that, feel free to take the right supplements, but for the first two months, just don’t. Why? Not because they will harm you or anything (though they might), but at this juncture they are unnecessary. I would much, much rather you learn how to eat properly first.

Think of this first period of your bodybuilding life—which I’ve referred to as “Phase One” in this blog—as Bodybuilding Boot Camp (dang that’s what I should’ve called this section). Supplements are definitely a great help for continuous gains and growth, but they’re also not free, some can cause damage if you’re not careful, and most don’t do shit. You need to know what to take and when to take it, yes, and I will explain in time but for now, don’t touch them. Rely just on food for now. Learn what meals you like, learn how to cook, learn how to maintain an appetite.

We’ll get to protein shakes, energy drinks, and tasteless powders later.

Resting. 

Good news: if you work out hard and eat well, you not only deserve to rest: you pretty much fucking have to.

Dem Z's are a must.

People don’t realize this, but muscles don’t actually grow in the gym (except for the sweet-ass blood engorgement [that’s what she said] that happens when you exercise, which we call ‘the pump’), but when you’re asleep. When you’re asleep is when your body recovers from everything that happened during the day—physically and mentally. Naturally, this includes the assault you unleashed on your muscle cells in the gym. That means that the more you sleep, the faster and more efficiently your body recovers, becomes bigger/stronger, and allows you to lift again.

You have to sleep at least 8 hours every day. Nap whenever possible.

Lions get it right. For some of you this sounds like a dream come true because who doesn’t love sleep? It’s pretty much awesome. However, it’s also not the easiest thing in the world to have a life that allows an hour at the gym, eight-plus hours of sleep, time in the kitchen, a job, and a social life.

Tough shit, though; sleeping is almost as important as working out and eating right. Sit down one day and try to create a schedule around these three important things or your effort might be in vain. As a subsection here, I’d like to add a little thought on overtraining—a weightlifter newbie’s bane.

Overtraining

Overtraining is exactly what it sounds like. Remember how I said before that I couldn’t think of any reason why someone should spend four hours in the gym? It’s not as easy of lifting more to get more results. Again, if it was that easy I’d be folding bears with my monstrously muscular eyelids. The truth is that rest is too important for this to be a possibility.

The general rule for bulking is that you should always have at least one but hopefully two rest days a week, if possible consecutive. Rest days mean rest from lifting and cardio, but not from eating right (though, of course, a couple of cheat meals a week are encouraged). On the weekends, please don’t touch a dumbbell, but if possible still stick to your diet for optimal gains.

Your body will grow consistently for a good while, but there will eventually be plateaus—both for your whole body and for specific body parts. Again, every body is different; I had to work legs more and arms less because when I started my arms blew up but my thighs didn’t. It’s natural. It’s genetics; even Arnold had a massive chest and comparatively small legs. You will be tempted to train some muscle groups double or even triple but there is one thing you need to remember:

If working a split routine, give each muscle group at the very least 72 hours to recover before working it again.

You probably won’t have to do this for years, but it’s extremely important to keep it in mind, or else your desperate attempts to have a huge gorilla chest will only keep it from actually growing.

General Tips for Wellbeing.

• Don’t let bodybuilding take over your life.

When people begin seeing results and feeling the changes they bring to their lives, it’s easy to become obsessed. It’s important that you don’t let this happen because it can have very shitty effects on your social life, your love life, and even bodybuilding itself. There are so many stories about guys that go to the extreme of asking how masturbating or having sex affects their bodybuilding. That is fucked. By the way: it doesn’t.

• When in doubt, don’t; instead, ask.

Bodybuilding is about controlled injury; don’t let it get out of control because of misguided experimentation. For this, there’s always the gym coach, your muscular friend, or another experienced acquaintance. There are also many great sources online where you can directly ask very knowledgeable people, even pros, about bodybuilding. Reddit’s Bodybuilding sub can be very helpful, same for the Bodybuilding.com forums, the Muscle&Strength forums (where I started), or this mindblowingly fantastic blog.

• Research the shit out of everything you put in your body.

I know I said no supplements yet, but when the time comes, don’t buy anything off the stores because a GNC employee recommended it, or because it’s on sale, or because of the blurbs in the label that prey on the insecurities of people like you. Use online resources like SupplementReviews to get first-hand accounts of users, familiarize yourself with the chemistry of supplements, learn what does what and what it is you need. Not every supplement “that works” will really have an effect on you. There are many ‘quintessential’ supps I’ve never taken, and some 'snake oil' supps I can't live without. We'll get to it.

• If you find something that works, stick with it.

Here comes the mantra again: every body is different. I guarantee if you follow the stuff I wrote in this blog you’ll begin to grow. However, the only way to really know what will make you keep growing is to identify what you’re doing right and to keep doing it. Yes, there will be diminishing returns, but that’s when you change what you’re doing—be it your diet, sleep schedule, workout routine, supplements, etc.

• Don’t compare your body to others’.

This is something I guarantee you’ll do because it’s just in our nature and it’s almost impossible to avoid. Either to your delight because you’re bigger than someone else or your dismay because you’re smaller, you need to try and control the instinct to compare your body and strength to others. Nothing good ever comes out of it.

• Don’t let the scale make you its bitch.

The scale will be either your best friend or your worst enemy. Standing on it will tell you how much you've grown or how much you haven't, right? Wrong. The truth is that while the scale obviously does give you your current weight, that number can often be a lie, mainly because there are a hundred different factors affecting it. You might be carrying a lot of water weight so it says you're 3 lbs heavier than you really are. You might have had a rough week when you couldn't stop shitting and it says you're 5 lbs lighter. You might have just eaten 2 lbs of Taco Bell. You might be standing on it while wearing 2 lb boots. Weight yourself every month at most, and consider that that number might not be completely accurate. If you ever want to know your exact body mass growth, have a check up. Just not too often.

Finally I’m adding one golden rule: Don’t be stupid. I know, this seems condescending but it’s not. It’s simple: don’t be stupid, and you’ll be fine. Don’t try to squat 250 pounds on your second week because that one guy in the gym could. Don’t stick a needle in your ass because your gym coach is selling. Don’t get cocky and try to get into a fight with some bully because you just gained 10 pounds and mistakenly feel very strong. Be and stay smart and you’ll be and stay strong.

That’s it for the basic part of bodybuilding which should be enough to give you your first several pounds. Stick around for more stuff, and feel free to contact me either through comments here or Twitter if you have any doubt.

In case you missed the rest of Bodybuilding 101:

IntroductionTo “Wolf In A Gorilla Suit In Gym Clothes”

FirstThings First: Preparing Yourself Mentally

FirstThings First: Nutrition Basics

FirstThings First: Working Out & The Gym

First Things First: Supplementing, Resting, And General Tips.

First Things First: Preparing Yourself Mentally.

There are a million reasons why anyone would want to get bigger, and very few of them are wrong. Maybe you want a boost of confidence that you desperately need to make friends. Maybe you want to turn your body into a project to occupy your mind from crap in your life. Maybe you want to get more attention from the ladies. Maybe you want to command more respect and admiration. All common social effects from a large build.

I’m not going to Miyagi this. You have your reasons; hopefully once you grow you don’t turn yourself into the kind of douche or bully that perpetuates the shitty image weightlifters and bodybuilders already have. Just be careful and don’t lose your mind throughout this process.

So whatever your reason, keep it in mind as motivation and that’ll make it easier for you. Now, with that thought, let me give you some quick tips you shouldn’t forget.

1. Set a goal, but not in stone.

Both are acceptable goals. It's up to you.

Maybe you want to look like Brad Pitt in “Fight Club”. Good news! That won’t take too long. Maybe you want to look like Ronnie Coleman in 1999. Bad news! You have decades of work ahead of you. It doesn’t matter. Whichever your goal is, have it clear in your head, but don’t be afraid to change it. When I started I was sure that I just wanted to weigh around 160 lbs. When I got there, I thought I wanted 180. Now I’m at 220 and don’t have any intention to stop before reaching 250, if I can. God knows what happens then. Feel every pound you gain and decide where you want to go next. You might even get too big for your taste and want to slim back down.

2. Keep it in the down low.

This will sound strange, but hear me out. Now that you’ve decided to grow, do your best to not be vocal about it. Don’t spam Facebook and Twitter with dramatic announcements of how you’ve decided to change and will start working out. Because of shit like “Friends”, a lot of people are under the impression that ‘friendly bullying’ is a bonding experience, and there’s always some fucking asshole that will make fun of you for it. “Oh man, I just imagined your puny ass working out and it was hilarious!”

Those coonts don't realize how crushing that is to hear, so keep it to yourself at first; your body will speak volumes later.

3. Don’t be afraid to take compliments.

If you want to get bigger, there’s a chance you’re an insecure guy, which is nothing to be ashamed of (even the hugest motherfuckers in the world have insecurities like yours). When 10lbs from now someone you know notices your growth and compliments it, take it with a smile and a thank you. You’re not a douche for being proud of your achievement. These compliments are one of the most important things that will keep you motivated. This brings me to . . .

4. Be proud, but not too much.

When you start to see gains, make sure you feel proud of every goddamn pound you put on because it’s a badge of your effort. It’s important to always be convinced that you’re working hard for it, and that you deserve to feel good about yourself. Remember it’s great to be proud of your work, but it’s even better to also be humble. Don’t let it get to your head. Your friends and family will be grateful.

See? Hulking nerd. As real as Batman!

5. Never forget what it's like to be small and weak.

If a couple of years from now you’re a lumbering giant, don’t be the kind of lumbering giant that throws his weight around. A lot of people claim—and I love this hypothesis—that ‘roid rage’ is sort of a myth, and that working out just turns you into a bigger version of what you are. If you’re a skinny asshole, you’ll become a muscular asshole, and those guys suck. Wanting respect is one thing, trying to bully it out of others is a whole other one. I really feel some people don't deserve strength.

6. Take criticism whence it's coming.

Remember when I said that muscular guys have a bad rep? Because of some very legit reasons—*cough*jerseyshore*cough*—people are way too quick to call anyone who is in shape “a douche”. A lot of people use this as a defense mechanism: convincing themselves that anyone with arms bigger than 11 inches is “a douche” is a way for out of shape people to rationalize their own poor body shape. "Well yeah, I could be big, but then I'd be a douchebag, and I hate douchebags so I'd rather just be a twig."

You’re not building a character in Skyrim here. You’re not trading away intelligence for strength. If you’re a smart guy now, why not be a smart guy who can bench press 300 lbs? Like motherf*cking Batman.

Now, perhaps the most important one:

7. Take it pound by pound.

It might take years and years to get the body you want. Yes, it’s discouraging to think that you won’t be huge for years, but here’s what people don’t tell you: you will feel gigantic with every pound you gain. It will take only weeks before you notice changes, and that’s all you’ll need to work for the next pound. And the next, and the next, and the next.

Don’t look forward to the moment you’ll be huge; look forward to the moment you’ll be bigger than you are now. It really isn’t very far away at all.

I think these are the first mind-and-motivation tips I can give you to start out. There will be several others posted in the “Mind Flexing” section as I write them out.

Keep reading as I post some early nutrition tips to get started.

In case you missed the rest of Bodybuilding 101:

IntroductionTo “Wolf In A Gorilla Suit In Gym Clothes”

FirstThings First: Preparing Yourself Mentally

FirstThings First: Nutrition Basics

FirstThings First: Working Out & The Gym

First Things First: Supplementing, Resting, And General Tips.

Important: Read This First

Hopefully this is the first thing you read in this blog. It’s important that this is the case, because otherwise you’ll close the tab never to be back again. Now, all right, this might not change even after you read this, but hey—at least you gave me a fair chance to explain exactly what the hell I’m doing here.

The first thing I must say is that this blog has one specific purpose: to help skinny guys get huge, naturally. You won’t find here information on cutting and reducing fat, where to buy equipment, how to cycle steroids, or anything like that. If you’re reading this, you’re a small fellow looking to get large fellow.

Behold!

Okay you don’t have to get Kai Greene huge. You can stop whenever you want. So if you’re still on board, let’s continue.

So here’s the deal. Bodybuilding and weightlifting in general get a bad rep, and weightlifters are often thought of as brutes whose only talent is “lifting heavy things now so I can lift heavier things later. *grunt*” Is this the case sometimes? Absolutely! I suppose the stereotype exists for a reason—but like all stereotypes, it’s mostly bogus.

If bodybuilding was as easy as lifting heavy things, every skinny guy who ever walked into a gym would become a monster, and every fat guy who stepped on a treadmill would get ripped. Consider this: how many times have people you know—or even yourself—decided to turn your life around and get fit, only to give up after two weeks because of a complete lack of results despite hours of effort and sweat in the gym?

That’s right, a metric shitload. And here’s the truth:

Making your muscles grow is easy. You don’t need dangerous or scary supplements. You just need to know what you're doing.

And you likely don’t. There are so many ways people rationalize their lack of results. "I'm naturally skinny." "My metabolism is too fast!" "I just can't gain weight!" blah, blah, blah. Bullshit. The load of it. 

This is when I get into my own story. This is me circa 2007:

The girly dude, not the amorphous blob.

I was tearing up the scale at a whopping 120 lbs. I hated being so puny, as many small guys do (and probably lie about). I had several false starts when I went to the gym for a couple of months and saw absolutely no results except maybe a bit of strength gains.

I remember in late 2009 browsing the double-u-double-u-double-u and making the decision of trying again, only this time did the thing I should’ve done ages ago: some actual fucking research. So I discovered about nutrition; specifically, the very simple rule of eat like a motherfather. I got my first "nice arms" two weeks later.

It was that easy. At first.

This is me at the end of 2012:

#NoFilter #JustOutOfOcean

I haven’t stepped on a scale in a few weeks, but I was somewhere around 220 lbs then; I might be a big heavier now—dunno; I don’t pay that much attention to the scale (lesson #1!).

In three years (the pic is from 07, but I started working out in 09), I gained more or less 100 lbs. I haven’t used steroids of any sort (I’m too much of a pussy for that stuff). It’s changed my life in every way, and I’ll talk about the details in due time. Am I done? No, not really. Who knows how much more I can change—I intend to find out.

So this is where I want to differentiate this from other blogs:

I will focus on one thing: bulking tips for naturally skinny guys.

Ectomorphs, hardgainers, or whatever you want to call yourselves. I don’t know squat (ha!) about cutting, cycling AAS, etc.; but I do have first-hand experience in dramatic muscle growth. I can help there.

This is aimed at the casual bodybuilder.

I personally have no interest in competitive bodybuilding. I love working out, I love sculpting my body. I love becoming stronger. I don’t much care about posing and being judged. I respect that side of the sport, no doubt, but it’s not for me—chances are it’s not for you either. You can decide along the way.

I don’t set strict rules.

I personally don’t subscribe to almost any of the bodybuilding circle jerks and conventions, and doing precisely that—challenging the cynical already-set “rules”—has given me great success. With that philosophy in mind, I’d like you to read what I write and do with it what you choose, assuming of course that you have the one goal: to grow.

To make this clearer, I don't believe in strict programs because I don't think they are much good. Every body reacts different to certain stimulus. I'd rather tell you what I know and you figure out through experimentation how your body reacts to bodybuilding, and use it to capitalize on that.

Zero bullshit policy.

I have absolutely no reason to lie to you. I’m not selling some shitty PDF. I don’t get a cent out of this blog. I won't ask for donations. I know—why even have it, right? I don’t know. I like writing, for one. But also, I know there are others out there who, like me, want to change their bodies. I can just give you the guarantee that if you learn the basics, you can take off on your own, as you learn how your body reacts to certain things, like I did.

So that’s basically it. I’m giving you something you can choose to take, or ignore. If you pay attention, at least to the basics, I guarantee your muscles will grow and you’ll see results incredibly fast—just learn from my experience and then craft your own.

Please enjoy and if you do, please share.

BODYBUILDING 101 

IntroductionTo “Wolf In A Gorilla Suit In Gym Clothes”

First Things First: Preparing Yourself Mentally

First Things First: Nutrition Basics

First Things First: Working Out & The Gym

First Things First: Supplementing, Resting, And General Tips.