BLAST’EM BIG!

Everyday without fail, I turn to bodybuilding.com to read threads, check others’ progress, etc. when I came across stayfit2008’s post. Three things stood out: his awesome physique, his learning curve and ageism. He said: "I once was told a few years ago "you’re 40 years old now. Your body is finished growing muscle".

I’m so sick of hearing that! WE’RE STILL F*CKING YOUNG!!!

He adds: "I want to defy the belief that our bodies quit growing at some mystical age. I am a bodybuilder, with knowledge comes growth."

HEAR, HEAR!!

After I finished reading his bodybuilder of the week, I was so on FIRE! I mean, if he can do it, I KNOW I can do it and so can the rest of the 40++++++!!!

WHY THE F*CK DO PEOPLE KEEP SAYING, "WE’RE DONE, WE’RE OLD, WE’RE FINITE!" I hauled my ass to the gym and I was going to prove EVERYONE WRONG! I CRANKED MY IPOD AND STARTED TEARING UP THE GYM!!

With my teeth gnashing, I flung those weights through. every. f*cking. rep as if my life depended on it and threw ‘em across the room. I didn’t give a flying RAT’S ass who heard my LOUD GRUNTS, I just pushed myself way beyond the limits like never before! After every rep, I STRETCHED my muscles so outta space, I swore I saw my muscles just POP POP POP!!

Yeah, tell me I’m OLD, YOU @*%$#&! BASTARD!

By the end of my workout, blood coursed through my veins, setting my muscles on fire! I felt FREAKING ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m positive that the patrons looked at me warily as if I had gone MAD but I didn’t give a f*ck. I just blew out of the gym and left it in a smoldering heap of metal and concrete.

Yeah, tell me again that I’m OLD, f*cker.

Here I am, still clicking on people’s pics and adding them to my ‘list of friends’ because of their impressive physique and / or knowledge of the sport. When I came across darkwatcher758’s progress photos, I was blown away by the difference between the 2 images.

On the left under the dreary blue lighting with his back against the wall, he wore an XX-L tshirt that covered his heaviness. He looked so dejected and had no where to go but face head-on what he came to be. On the right in the warm amber glow is a handsome fellow with his collar loose, head tilted in "cockiness" as if to say, "look at me now". I could actually feel that confidence exude from my computer monitor!

In a weird way, I don’t even know this guy but I felt very proud of him and for him! I gotta say, Kudos! Kudos for a job well done!!

Darkwatcher, I hope you inspire so many others as you have inspired me today.

I’m getting frustrated, overwhelmed and inspired all at once!

For the past few days, I’ve been navigating this BB.com and have been going all over the board. For every post, every profile I clicked, I’ve been directed to MORE jaw-dropping photos. I just turn green with envy and I look at myself in the mirror and think, GACK! WHY CAN’T I HAVE THOSE HUGE GUNS? BARNDOOR BACK? BROAD CHEST? ETC?!?!?

I’m so hungry for those muscles that I could eat Hola Bola’s shoulder cap, StillHungry’s big gun, SteveP78’s lean abs or any of those guys who I added to my list just to get at THEIR MUSCLES! Fortunately for them, I’m not some protein-starved, crazy-ass werewolf about to hunt them down to gnaw on a muscled thigh. (Although this would be a great script for CSI:Miami!)

I have to tell you, I am EXTREMELY impatient with time and / or progress. I once took an oil painting class in college and the teacher constantly told me, "Quit fighting with the canvas! You MUST take your time with the oils." I just wanted to get my paintings done in a hurry and I didn’t have time to wait for the oils to dry to stroke another layer of paint! All through the semester, I "muddied" my Picassos until one day the teach told me that if I don’t quit fighting, she’ll flunk me. So I had to paint with patience. I was practically beside myself but stroke after stroke, I laid the painting down on canvas until it came out "awesome"! I think she was more impressed by my patience than my painting because I thought it was terrible. Heck, nobody wanted it even if I PAID somebody to take it.

It’s the same with bodybuilding. I’d workout like crazy and then criticize myself impatiently. "You workout those arms for an hour and yet I don’t see anything! Look at these guys for Gawd’s sake! They can flick your fish-stick arms with their muscled pinkies." (Yes, I do talk like a cruel muther-f to my sorry-ass-inner-skinny-dweeb or good-fer-nothing-inner-fat-ass depending on my state of mind / body).

Now I know I just got back into the game after a 3-year hiatus since Katrina hit NOLA and I shouldn’t be a sudden overnight sensation after 4 months, expecting to rank right up there with the big boys. As KINGmosayebi said to me in a threaded post when I complained about my lack of progress, "Stay consistent like this guy (gettinghuge5). You’ve only been at it 4 months." I am aware that gettinghuge5 has been at it for 2 years but the thing is, I’m looking at his progress in 4 pics!! Skinny, okay, built, SHAZAM! That’s all done in 4 words!! (Man, if bodybuilding could be like that, we’d all be squeezing the skinny-ninnies off the planet.)

So really, I need to be realistic and look at the gaps between those four pics to see where he’s coming from and I should do the same. PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE!

That’s my new mantra in my quest to a STUPENDOUS body. Patience is now my new virtue in which I shall exercise daily. I shall work out patiently. I shall drink protein shakes patiently. I shall progress patiently and bestow gentle criticisms to thyself. Hell, I’ll even let some gym idiot exercise his mouth on his cell phone while holding up the pec deck and I’ll patiently exercise some other bodypart that would eventually clock him later.

Therefore, I will let patience test me and my muscles and I should be rewarded sometime next week!