ON PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION: SIMPLE, NOT EASY

  

A sentiment I find myself having to constantly repeat is “if physical transformation was easy, there would be more jacked people.”  I have to repeat this sentiment frequently because it seems as though this fact is lost on MANY people.  This is reflected based off the incredibly warped expectations people have regarding the very process of physical transformation.  Frequently I see a sentiment expressed that essentially boils down to “I’ve been training hard and eating well for 2 weeks: how come I’m not jacked?”  People are quick to rush to blame social media and steroids and “unrealistic body images/expectations”, but before all that we had Rocky montages which I’d say are the REAL culprit here.  We ALL love the idea of some scrub whose been living off ramen and vodka getting their head on straight, buckling down, and radically transforming themselves in the span of a few weeks…but the truth is, that dude gets his lunch eaten by the dude that has been doing that the WHOLE time, living it for YEARS on end, with no breaks, no deviations, and no signs of weakening.  And therein lies the rub: it’s all so simple, but it’s NOT easy.

 

Winning a boxing match is simple: just punch the other guy and don't get punched

Already I find myself acknowledging that I’m basically re-writing my “the secret is patience” post, but let’s just keep on going down this rabbit hole to really appreciate it.  We recently got youtube cleared through our firewall at work, and with nutrition being my newest obsession (since, as I’ve previously written, there’s nothing new to read about regarding training), I’ve taken to having videos of bodybuilders describing their diets on in the background while I get work done.  Wanna know something about bodybuilding diets?  They’re BORING!  It’s all the same stuff: some carbs (rice almost always, occasionally potatoes), some meat (lean when cutting, beef occasionally when gaining), and MAYBE some fats from oils.  There’s pretty much nothing to learn from these videos: it’s all very obvious stuff.  Eat a lot of single ingredient food (THERE: THERE is your definition for “clean food”.  Are you happy internet?!) and eat enough of it to grow if you’re growing and don’t eat too much of it if you’re losing fat.  So who is the best bodybuilder?  The guy that actually DOES it, because even though this is stupidly simple: it’s hard as f**k!

 

The guy that wins the competition is the guy that NEVER deviates from the plan.  They bring food EVERYWHERE for the entire contest prep.  They have everything measured, weighed out, and accurately calculated.  They eat WHEN THEY AREN’T HUNGRY (pay attention “I eat all the time and never gain weight” types), on the schedule, with no missed meals, no swaps, no substitutions, no “close enoughs”, etc.  That is SO stupidly simple: just eat the food dummy!  But it’s HARD.  It’s so hard that the EATING is what typically retires bodybuilders.  The training is something of an afterthought (something Justin Harris has spoken to, which again, reference my whole “there is nothing to read about” notion) and, for many, is the actual “fun” part of the process: it’s the eating that is all consuming (pun totally intended).  Hell, even the non-monklike athletes express something similar.  Pro-strongman, who are able to partake in some oreos and pizza and burgers, STILL eat like it’s a job, and STILL hate it…but it’s the dude that actually sacks up and DOES it that wins.

Meanwhile, Jay Cutler's favorite cheat meal was "nothing"

 

So if I’m writing this like it’s an instruction manual for a beginner (it’s not), the nutrition section would be: “eat healthy food, enough of it to grow if you want to build muscle, not too much of it if you want to lose fat”.  The training is ALSO simple.  Lift weights and do cardio.  Look: can we go further than that?  Sure…but MAYBE you need to make sure you’re actually doing those things FIRST before we start discussing the details. You think I’m joking, but HOW many dudes are skipping the cardio part of “lift weights and do cardio”?  COULD I do the whole “cardio vs conditioning” thing right now?  Sure, but really, if I could just get you dudes to go for a WALK every day, I’d be more than pleased.  Wanna add some more complexity to it?  You got it: go do something that makes your heart beat REALLY fast and where you need to gasp for air.  How many times?  Until you can’t, then do 1 more round.  How do I lift weights?  Let me give you the simplest program ever: go find something, pick it up off the floor and get it over your head.  Do it until you can’t, rest for a little and try it again.  After an hour, go home.  No joke, if you did that and the cardio AND the eating, and did it for a few years, you would be a radically transformed physical specimen.

 

But that’s not EASY.  Picking stuff up off the floor and putting it over your head is HARD.  It’s SO hard we give people GOLD F**KING MEDALS in the Olympics when they are the best at it!  Know who doesn’t get a gold medal?  Dudes that lay down on their backs and press the weight over their face instead.  Wild.  (Powerlifitng will always be my first love, please don’t get upset powerlifters).  Going for a walk EVERY day sucks.  It sucks so much that I tried to make my dog do it for a week and he actually HID in his kennel to avoid a walk one day…and that’s a dog.  Sometimes our schedule sucks and it means getting up at 0300 to get the workout in, sometimes something happens that throws off our plans, sometimes it’s raining and walking sounds lame…but it’s the dudes that still DO it that succeed.  It’s simple: it’s not easy.

This, of course, is neither

 

And this is why you observe so few physically transformed people…but we have to appreciate that.  No one is hiding the secrets, and there’s no knowledge one needs to get to succeed.  “It’s SO complicated!”  No: it really REALLY isn’t.  You KNOW what it takes to achieve physical transformation: hard work, consistency and time.  It’s stupidly simple…it’s just not easy.