18M there, had a sedentary lifestyle for as long as I can remember, started going to the gym recently and dropped about 26 lbs of fat, which revealed my strange body shape. I don’t suffer from any genetic disorders, though I may have hypogonadism, gonna check my T levels soon. I don’t have any muscle gains yet and there’s still a moderate level of fat in my lower body, but that’s mostly bones. Since clavicles grow up until 25 or so, I’m probably gonna start swimming and try those hyped up pullovers amongst other things, won’t hurt anyway. Things is, can I hope to more or less even out my body with muscle, or am I absolutely fucked from the start? I don’t plan to compete or achieve a crazy V-taper, just wanna look more or less decently overall and widen my delts to fit better in clothes.
I assure you, after 10 years of hard training and eating, you will look at million percent better than you currently look.
I think the thing you’ll most regret is putting naked pictures on the Internet.
As said, just start lifting and eating right. Starting points only matter for the genetic elite that are going to make a living off their body. That’s not 99.9% of us.
10 years is a lot of time, but still reassuring. I’ve seen that body shape get called a physique death sentence, so my hopes are pretty low.
It seems that way because you’re only 18. Trust me: you’ll blink and be 28, and it only goes faster.
I would find the person that has said that and make sure to never listen to them again on any subject, as they are an objectively silly person.
My dude, you have all your arms and legs and it seems like the correct number of chromosomes in the correct location.
Count your blessings.
The reality is, except for genetic exceptions (1% or less of the population), building muscle takes time. A lot more time than what most people think.
The main reason why people get discouraged or even stop training altogether is that they have unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved.
You are a beginner. And theoretically, you are in the best hormonal state to grow (although hypogonadism screws that up) so you might be able to gain something like 1-2lbs of muscle per month of HARD training (most people do not train remotely close to hard enough to grow) if nutrition is on point.
A beginner can add 12-20lbs of muscle in a year of HARD training and eating properly. It slows down a lot after that (cut it in roughly half every year… so you might gain 16lbs the first year, 8lbs the second year, 4lbs the third year and 2-4lbs per year for a few years after that).
So if you stick with it and learn to train HARD and eat properly, you will definitely change your physique dramatically. But it will take years to really look somewhat impressive.
As for your structure… we are born with our structure, that’s how it is. And, yes, it can limit how aesthetic we look. But if you get lean and muscular you’ll look good regardless of body type.
Personally, I have a long and wide torso, naturally narrow clavicles, short arms and legs. Not the best to look aesthetic (even when I’m lean I have a wide waist and short limbs look worse than long limbs).
But the muscle and leanness makes up for it.
If I stand next to someone with God-like aesthetic genetics (small waist, wide shoulders, long limbs) with the same amount of muscle, I don’t look as good.
But compared to most I look great.
But this is how I used to look like… and I’ve looked even worse, because n those pics I was super strong.
The point is: stick to the program. Learn to train like an animal. Eat tons of protein. Repeat for a few years and your life will change.
Thanks! I’m not sure about hypogonadism. My hormones are just screwed after years of unhealthy lifestyle most likely, but I can’t say for sure at the moment. Training like an animal won’t be a problem, before learning how to train properly I was spending hours in the gym almost every day doing random hard stuff, hence the fast weight loss, but I barely felt tired afterwards. Gonna hop on a program soon, would you reccomend training obliques to make my torso wider compared to the hips or should I focus on the lats and delts more?
Hypothetically speaking, lets say you were screwed with this body shape.
Would you do nothing to improve the way you look?
If you can’t look like Mike O’Hearn, would you still want to look better than you do right now?
What kinds of food are you into? What do you eat in a typical day?
Of course I want! If anything, my body shape must ecnourage me to train harder than the average guy. Even though Christian seems to have somewhat similar body shape (albeit bigger and better) and he looks SICK now, it’s hard for me to believe that I can achieve any decent gains and look normal, especially after seeing all that negativity and mockery towards jacked guys with similar body (like that overused photo of Josh Leader) on the net.
I used to eat lots of junk food. Started to eat healthy two months ago. Meat, milk, eggs, salads, all that stuff. Still have a lot to learn about nutrition, but at least I don’t eat that garbage anymore.
I really do feel bad for this generation that grew up in social media. It has created this scenario where you worry about things that will only come up at the extremes of success as if that means you shouldn’t even get out the door… not to mention hypothetical ridicule from and about people you’ve never met.
You should be celebrating that you’ve taken some steps and lost 26 lbs., have cleaned up some dietary habits, and are entering the prime of your life where you can pack on muscle like a steroid user. Instead you’re worried you might not have the skeletal structure to look like an imagined ideal and have self-diagnosed with a potential (incredibly unlikely) hypogonadism without any lab tests.
I don’t say any of this to be mean; you’re a victim of your surroundings, so to speak.
There’s an old saying if you go to bed worrying, you wake up with the same problems and you’re tired.
Were I in your shoes, I would:
- Lift 3-4 days a week (Coach CT has dozens of programs, for free, on this site, is one of the most renowned strength coaches in the solar system, and, as you just saw, will answer questions in this forum)
- Condition, hard, 2-3 days a week
- Walk every day
- Play a sport a couple times a week
- Eat 175g+ of protein over the course of 3-5 meals every day
- Drink a minimum of 3L of water every day
- Make the rest of your food unprocessed and don’t overly stress about it
Imagine the stud you’ll be when you’re 22 while the rest of your friends are working off the 20lbs of beer fat (or video game Cheetos? I don’t know what’s cool anymore) they added!
My god, now you’ve motivated ME!
Alright! That’s a great answer!
You’ve improved your diet and plan on expanding your knowledge to make further improvements.
And you started training and made some gains and you plan on expanding your knowledge of training to train better. And get more gains.
You jumped right in and got to work without delaying by trying to become an expert first.
It sounds like you have the right idea!
Geez, thanks man. Really appreciate that. I’m not trying to self-diagnose myself and am not paranoid about it, it’s just obvious that there’s something off with my hormones, simple imbalance being the case most likely. I definitely worry too much about my potential though, I should probably spend less time reading about such cases, stop comparing myself to others and just lift. Easier said than done, sadly.
Like what? Can you describe whatever it is that’s making you think this?
Poor body hair growth, my voice kinda, narrow shoulders and wide hips despite the fact that most men in my family have average to large frames, lethargy. The lack of physical exercise and poor diet during my formative years obviously contributed to all that. Still won’t stop me from becoming better.
Leave no stone unturned!
Try some commonly suggested vitamins like (vitamin) D, magnesium and zinc for a month.
During that time don’t use plastic cups, plates or utensils to avoid xenoestrogens.
Maybe it will turn you into a caveman!
You mean the hair? It’s developing, just at a very slow pace. Should it help with anything else?
Ah, the overall testosterone levels, I get it. Maybe i’ll try it after getting everything tested.