reteidxx’s BodyBlog

This is a response to a young man who left a comment for me wondering if I just have good genetics and is is impossible for him to ever look the way I do.

The answer is - No, my genetics were awful and I don’t really believe genetics is an important factor in bodybuilding as a hobby.  I think it is a factor in professional bodybuilding, along with lots of other life circumstances that determine if someone could be a professional bodybuilder.  But that applies to very few people.  For the vast majority of men or women who want to be fit and look fit, I don’t think genetics is important at all.   I see lots of examples every day where people who had excellent genetics look awful.  There are many former professional athletes from various sports who now look awful.  Genetics doesn’t guarantee you anything, and I don’t think it holds you back from anything either, unless you want to make a living as a professional.

I think the term "genetics" is used as an excuse by people unwilling to put forth the effort required.  In my case, my genetic potential was poor.  As I say in my profile, I was a short, weak, and skinny teenager.  My parents were not athletic, in fact none of my biological relatives were athletic at all.  But  when I was growing up we always had a healthy diet and there was no obesity either. 

Genetics determines how tall you will be and what your bone structure will be.  Your muscles will follow your bone structure because the muscles are attached to the bones.  Some bone structures are better proportioned than others, and you can’t really change that.  But even if you are unusually short, or tall, or have a poorly balanced bone structure, you can become really fit and look more muscular and more athletic than 95% of your peers.  Some people are "hard gainers"; I am one of those.  But I’ve been working out for over 20 years and no I didn’t see results overnight.  Far from it.

So my advice - forget about "genetics".   It’s a special plus for a lucky few individuals, and for the rest of us, it’s just a concept that will hold you back and keep you from reaching your goals.  Genetics is your past - your future is determined by the decisions you make, the lifestyle you lead, and the amount of effort that you are willing to put forth.  Laziness, overindulgence, and poor self-concept are far greater problems than your genetics.  What happens to people is decided by the decisions they make, not by which of their parents’ chromosomes happened to get together.

Since I had this question posed to me, I’ll answer it here so it might be of some use to more than one person.  I do not claim to be an expert of any kind - I have no degree or training in exercise physiology, sports medicine, or nutrition.   Any one claiming to be an expert is welcome to contradict or add their own opinion which hopefully would also be helpful to others.  I guess since I look like I get pretty good results, my advice is being requested.  That’s fine, here goes!

Advice for a middle aged bodybuilder:

1.  Don’t think, act, pretend, or try to convince yourself that you are 20 again.  Your aren’t.  End of story.

2.  Don’t make excuses for skipping workouts.  If you are hurting, or you were up all night, or you feel like crap, often you will actually feel a lot better after you finish your workout.  The exception here is if you are really sick with some serious condition, in which case you need to be calling your doctor right away and forget about the workout.

3.  Don’t just go to the gym or your home gym, do a few minutes of cardio, randomly lift some weights here and there, get on a few machines, and then leave feeling satisfied that you made it to the gym.  You haven’t accomplished anything and you just screwed yourself by pretending to have done something when in fact you did nothing.

4.  Have a workout plan that you generally follow.  Sometimes you will have to change the plan because of various circumstances and situations, but have a plan than you follow most of the time.

5.  In simple terms there are six convenient muscle groupings for bodybuilders - arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, abs.  Special situations might dictate a different grouping (like a body part that doesn’t work or isn’t there any more).  But for most beginners this is a decent way to organize your body parts.  Each of the six body parts should be worked once or twice per week, not more.  This can be individualized for what works best for you.  About 2 hours of working each body part per week is good for me.  The exception is abs which I work daily, because that’s what Arnold and the guys back in the day used to do.  I don’t know if it’s right or wrong to work the abs every day - I do it to preserve a tradition.

6.  Knowing what the body parts are and that each should be worked once or twice per week, develop different schedules and see what feels right to you, what you get the best results from, and what your body can handle.  How much time you have available, what your boss wants, or what chores your wife has waiting for you, should not be a factor.  If you don’t make this the first priority, it will get pushed aside by all the other requirements of life.  Getting your workout done has to be the first priority of every day, period.  That doesn’t mean necessarily that it’s the first thing you do every day, but it has to be the most important thing.  You have an excuse - you’re getting older and you’re not just f—ing around at the gym for no reason.  You’re taking care of yourself.  Anyone who tries to interfere with that goal is trying to harm you.

7.  Do not stop working out because of an injury.  Injuries are impossible to prevent.  The body is not as strong or resilient as it used to be.  You will be hurting after workouts, sometimes a lot, and sometimes it won’t be better the next day.  You have to distinguish between minor injuries, which you suffer through and use home remedies for, and severe injuries, which require seeing a doctor.  Minor injuries include the typical aches and pains in various places that bodybuilders get.  Motrin is your friend.  Severe injuries include torn ligaments, torn tendons, internal damage to the knee, dislocated shoulders, and such things.  Go to the doctor for those.  When you go to the doctor, he will probably know nothing about bodybuilding so you will have to explain to him in detail how you were injured, what kind of improvement you are looking for, and what it will take to satisfy you.  There’s a big difference between us and they typical slob off the street who just needs to be able to move between the bed, the car, the office chair, and the couch. 

8.  If you have to see a doctor, remember that they are smart people who are trying to help you.  Doctors are not the enemy, unlike what you see portrayed on some of the forums.  Again, you have to explain in detail everything about your problem that you are seeking help for, and what you expect to receive.  Bodybuilders are not typical patients.  They are amateur athletes, which requires the doctor to make a shift in thinking from the usual, and may require some research or looking up things to get the right answer.  Never lie or try to deceive doctors.  If you give bad information to a physician, you are likely to get bad results.

9.  Diet - I don’t consider bodybuilding to be a weight loss program.  People who are very overweight should lose weight first through dieting and simple aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, elliptical etc) before they start a bodybuilding program.  Forget about any strength training until you are reasonably close to a normal body weight.

10.  If your goal is to get stronger and bigger and you don’t care about body fat, eat a lot and eat frequently while bodybuilding.  Muscles need food to grow.  Since muscle is heavier than fat, even if you look about the same and your clothes fit about the same, you should gain weight because you are replacing fat with muscle.

11.  If you want to look "ripped" which just means having low body fat so the muscles show, you will have to pay a lot more attention to your diet.  In this case, of the serious bodybuilder who wants to maintain low body fat, diet is probably more than half of the total effort.  Lifting weights at the gym is the easy part.  The hard part is balancing nutrition and muscle development with leanness and low body fat.  There is an entire science to this which I think is covered extensively in some of the forums.  I won’t pretend to know much about it, except to say that there are a lot of things you can’t eat and sometimes you will go hungry.  Maintaining the right diet probably requires more self discipline than any other aspect of bodybuilding.

Ok, I’m tired of typing and that’s about all I have to say.  Good luck to any newbies who happen to read this and maybe it will be helpful.  I’m not an authority in the field of bodybuilding and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night.  Happy lifting!