Why do you go to the gym? This answer usually includes one or more reasons: Your doctor said that if you don’t start exercising regularly and lose weight, you will die before your daughter’s wedding. Or maybe you’re a soccer mom of three who’s intent on getting your toned body back. Or you are a recreational sports warrior, a hardcore bodybuilder, a The old-school lifter pushes back Father Timeor you’re 12 and you think muscles are cool. In one or a combination of them, we all have one irrevocable thing in common: We are trying to do something to our muscles – improve them, define them, make them more efficient and functional for our needs, or whatever else you want to call it. Even CrossFit. Everything your body needs to recover and build muscle. It’s not two sides.
You can’t change fat: The real goal of strength training
If you want to call it toning, sculpting, sculpting, contouring, ultimately, you are asking your body to build and repair muscle tissue.
Whether you’re actually seeing the results of toning, toning, sculpting, whatever, it’s how much body fat you have covering the muscles. Ever heard the phrase “You can’t get fat?” Well, you can’t. Only the muscles curl. How much definition of this muscle you see when it is flexed is directly related to the thickness of the layer of body fat that you have covering the muscle.
So before you embark on this path, for whatever reason, you must agree that the reason you are going to the gym is to improve your fitness and well-being through some method that repeatedly, gradually and consistently eliminates your weight and then allows yourself to recover from the stimulus. So, in other words, you are here to build muscle. Period. End of story.
Now that you’ve cleared that hurdle, you have to accept the fact that while you may want a 20-inch arm, Mother Nature isn’t going to do it. Anything you put in your mouth is, to her, metabolically active tissue waste, and she doesn’t want you to have it. So you have to convince him that his 12-inch arm is insufficient for the constant gravitational pressure you are applying to him. Maintain this stress and increase it gradually and the muscles will grow as you force the Mother to adapt. But take that stress away for too long and Mother Nature will give back what you’ve built.
If you have any doubts, put the arm in a 20-inch cast for eight weeks. Think you’re going to pull back your 20-inch arms? Psst… I have news for you.
The matter is simple. You either use it or lose it. Weight training that supports any visible and measurable results is a long-term, almost daily commitment. If there’s one place in life where you can expect instant gratification, it’s in trying to make and maintain significant positive changes in your body and fitness.
And that brings us to two things that no one thinks about before they start.
First: It’s forever
The biggest mistake beginners make is thinking that fitness is a temporary task. Lose twenty pounds, get beach ready, add some muscle, tone up the summer, and then keep it all by holding a dumbbell from across the room. It doesn’t work that way. The body only stores what it needs to survive. Stop training, stop creating demands, and the body immediately begins to destroy the precious tissue you worked so hard to build. This is not a six-week project. It’s a lifestyle contract you sign with yourself and the fine print says it for life.
Second: Nutrition is more important than you think
You can stimulate muscle growth all day long, but if the raw materials for tissue repair and regeneration are not available, nothing will happen. You’re essentially breaking down muscle fibers in the gym and expecting your body to rebuild them bigger and stronger afterwards. This process requires protein, calories, hydration, micronutrients and recovery. The gym is just one motivator. Real progress happens outside of the gym, usually in the kitchen and in your bed while you sleep. Ignore this fact and you’ll spend years wondering why your body never changes despite all your hard work.
So before you start, find out what you are really signing up for.
Is fitness a lifelong commitment?
You are entering into a long-term contract with biology itself. You repeatedly stress your body in ways it doesn’t enjoy, force it to adapt against its energy-conserving instincts, feed it what it needs to recover, and do it again tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
Iron doesn’t care what your goals are. He doesn’t care about your excuses. It just responds to consistency over time.
Before you start, make sure you understand this.
Because when you start…
There is no finish line.
