To all you future bodybuilders: I won’t ever compliment you.
Have I ever mentioned to you that you are ready to begin prepping for a contest?
Seriously, you are ready. In spite of what you may believe, you are ready. If I have mentioned it to you, then TRUST MY JUDGEMENT; it’s time to step up.
See, I have a "good eye" for recruitment. I am a coach, so some of what I do is separating out the posers from the players. If I couldn’t spot that early, then every team of bodybuilders I’ve coached would have floundered and gone belly up.
(DISCLAIMER ON THE PICS IN THIS POST: These are all bodybuilding.com/bodyspace.com members whom i have had conversations with about this very topic. Including them in this post is to signify they are among the MANY guys who I feel are ready . . . if anyone is uncomfortable being mentioned this way let me know and I’ll gladly pull you off. Meanwhile, it is intended in the spirit of recognizing your efforts for the positive.)
Now, I can usually spot readiness when it comes to an athlete’s attitude, physique and methodology. That’s why, if I mentioned it to you, I was serious. It was not a compliment, but a fact; I “spotted” you. You are ready; no matter what YOU think ready is, as the guy with the experience I can tell you that you are ready to begin NOW.
But “ready is willing” I always say. Although I can spot readiness, willingness has to be told to me. If an athlete is not willing to believe he has what it takes, then he is not ready. Not by a long shot.
And then my suggestion to begin just seems like flattery. If an athlete does not believe that he has it, and you won’t listen to the “old dog” who has spotted your talent, then you’re is not ready. Ready is willing. If you hear my suggestion as only a compliment, then you ain’t ready.
But that doesn’t change I have spotted you, and that you got what it takes RIGHT NOW. I have found the qualities in hundreds of guys who at first didn’t think they were ready. Most of them stayed stuck in their belief. Eventually some stepped up to compete, long past the point when it would have made sense to begin competing, and then had a crappy experience and became embittered. Yet most just took the suggestion as an idle compliment, and never acted on their readiness at all . . .
The few who did step up went far, made huge gains, and were glad they listened to me. Even if i did not directly coach them, they trusted that I was not flattering them. They put faith in the fact that, as a coach (and thus as sort of a “recruiter), that I could spot the qualities better than they could.
Often, I can find these qualities fast, without even much interaction with an athlete. That’s why I may have suggested it to you. Usually, these qualities become evident in just a few, little, seemingly subtle details which I pick up on. ]To list whatthese cues might be would take a long time; besides, much of it is just an intuition I have built up from years of coaching and recruiting. I have seen the jokers, and learned what they look like. And I have seen the true athletes, and know how they are spotted.
And, like I said, I may have spotted YOU. If I did, it wasn’t a compliment . . . . It was a fact.
You are ready to become an athlete.
Take that not as a compliment. Take that as assessment.
As a coach, one of the greatest obstacles I have to push athletes past is their own perceptions. In bodybuilding, 95-95% of the popular media and popular image is based around “body manipulation”, and not based around the competitive field. You see tons of anecdotal imagery and writing about this guy and that who got his weight up to so many pounds or got leaned down to such-and-such body fat percentage. But these are all manipulations of the body’s properties. They are not assessments of a guy’s competitive abilities.
So, what happens is decent athletes like you evaluate their competitive ability based on a comparison of their physique with their ideal. But this comparison — between what you got and what you “think is awesome” — is not anywhere near an assessment of how you would fare in competition. It is only an assessment of your “social cred.” Know what I mean?
Bodybuilding is not about “who has the best body.” Bodybuilding is about “who PRESENTS the best AESTHETIC.” And there are OCEANS of difference between those two concepts.
Popular media makes a LOT more money off the “get the best body” message. So, that is mostly what gets snagged in people’s consciousness. But this leaves the competitive arena out in the cold. usually guys have no idea how “close” they are to being competent in this sport. Instead, they just listen to the anecdotes out there, and compare themselves to these ideals.
Likewise, in bodybuilding all athletes make progression. Which means NO ONE in ANY SPORT starts out being Mr. Win-It-All. There is NO ATHLETE or team that started out winning. In fact, MOST start out losing. And for good benefit. How else could you improve if you do not first compare yourself to other athletes?
Most guys do not want to go near competition based on the foolish and lofty idea that “I am not ready until i can go in and WIN.” But think about that: go in and win at a sport you’ve never played, much less experienced in any other way than anecdotally? That would be like saying “I am going to copy what i see in EVERY FOOTBALL MOVIE EVER MADE, and then I’ll be ready to win a football game.” Sacked.
You have to remember that no amount of web-surfing will communicate the competitive arena to you. Now will it give you the perspective on your abilities.
This sport is about a set of skills rarely talked about in all these forums. The skills of presentation have, ironically, little to do with training and dieting. Training and dieting merely “get the equipment ready for the job.” But massive size and cuts are NOT a guarantee for success. They are merely “better equipment.” The worst athlete in the world can have the best equipment in the world, and still only play a mediocre game . . .
I face this SO OFTEN in my coaching. The kid with the killer body who is basically a competitive botard.
For what YOU would need in terms of equipment, you are ready. Remember, you would go in first to learn. Learn the sport, learn how to be competitive, learn ways to master your game, and learn ways to improve your equipment. The first three or four shows a “winning strategy” is to forego the idea of winning. That may SOUND counter-intuitive, but you need to learn how to play.
So, your EQUIPMENT is ready to begin to play. Ironically, most athletes find they make more mass gains and get leaner by regularly competing instead of by constantly training. Faster “personal improvements” get made when one approaches their physique work like “training for a sport” as opposed to just like “body manipulation tactics.”
So, in short, saying you’re ready for a contest is, in fact, NOT a compliment. It is an ASSESSMENT.
I am saying, in short, you are ready to begin playing, and to personally begin reaping the benefits of the pursuit — far more benefits, and far more PERSONAL GAINS benefits, than you may at first imagine.
Do not be flattered. Be informed.
Like I said before, I am always telling athletes the same thing: “Ready is Willing.”
To be “ready” merely means to be “willing” to take on the task. Do not assess “readiness” based on the equipment you DON’T yet have; base “readiness” on your willingness to USE the equipment that you DO have.
Your equipment is more than ready. I spotted you. I pulled you out – maybe even CALLED you out. You’re ready to begin if you so choose.
So, all that’s left is: are you WILLING?
No compliment necessary!
