[photo]40744[/photo]
Spring 2012. About 15 months after the pic above.
I should add, I still really don’t look like I lift in most clothes. I’m a munchkin, and I still usually buy the smallest sizes I can find in jackets, 0P or 2P. Same with everything in my closet, so it’s not like I’ve gotten huge. Just thought I’d chime in with a female perspective here!
[quote]Benanything wrote:
Oh and to possibly add on to the question, I’m sure y’all have tried getting friends/family (who don’t lift) on lifting and such, how much success do y’all usually have? In my experience, keep in mind that I haven’t been lifting for all that long, most people (5 friends and counting) just give up 1-2 months in regardless of how much I try to help them. Giving them a beginner programme to follow, asking them to track their macros, etc etc. Is it just be or are most people just not willing and for a lack of a better term, lazy?[/quote]
It doesn’t work to get people into lifting unless they want to make a change. When they want to, then that opens the door for help. The only way to keep them going is to keep them motivated by having them do something they enjoy and seeing that they are progressing and continually moving toward their goal.
One person I trained was improving but lost motivation when they no longer enjoyed what they were doing. That’s when I learned that you have to be result driven and find many ways to accomplish a goal and achieve the same result, while meeting the needs of the person.
If they are seeing progress, they are more likely to stick with it even when it gets tough. You also have to give them choices instead of having them stick to a rigid plan (if they don’t like it). When someone continues to make progress with strength but weight loss slows down, I let them know that diet, workload and recovery all affect weight loss so it’s up to them what they want to focus on. It’s funny that it usually ends up with them getting tired of all the extra cardio so they decide to change their diet.
You also have to shift them away from the all or nothing mentality and instead focus on small progress over a long period of time. So what if they only added one extra serving of veggies per day. That’s improvement. There’s always room for improvement. You can’t completely transform a person’s habits unless they want it that bad. If they miss a training session then find ways for them to do something that prevents them from regressing and make adjustments to accommodate changing schedules. The positive reinforcement over time with all the small achievements eventually fosters a new lifestyle.
Beginner programs don’t work very well for everybody. You really have to identify weaknesses in order to build a solid foundation for continued progress.
I have looked like I lifted since birth.
Great post lift206
I would never have the patience to help beginners from A to Z. You really have to be a true passionate. Much respect for that
[quote]tontongg wrote:
Great post lift206
I would never have the patience to help beginners from A to Z. You really have to be a true passionate. Much respect for that[/quote]
Agreed.
Thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences thus far.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[photo]40744[/photo]
Spring 2012. About 15 months after the pic above.
I should add, I still really don’t look like I lift in most clothes. I’m a munchkin, and I still usually buy the smallest sizes I can find in jackets, 0P or 2P. Same with everything in my closet, so it’s not like I’ve gotten huge. Just thought I’d chime in with a female perspective here!
[/quote]
Totally off topic, but that’s some good work Powerpuff.
[quote]tontongg wrote:
Great post lift206
I would never have the patience to help beginners from A to Z. You really have to be a true passionate. Much respect for that[/quote]
Thanks, I appreciate it.
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[photo]40744[/photo]
Spring 2012. About 15 months after the pic above.
I should add, I still really don’t look like I lift in most clothes. I’m a munchkin, and I still usually buy the smallest sizes I can find in jackets, 0P or 2P. Same with everything in my closet, so it’s not like I’ve gotten huge. Just thought I’d chime in with a female perspective here!
[/quote]
Totally off topic, but that’s some good work Powerpuff.[/quote]
x2. That’s great progress.
[quote]lift206 wrote:
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Spring 2012. About 15 months after the pic above.
I should add, I still really don’t look like I lift in most clothes. I’m a munchkin, and I still usually buy the smallest sizes I can find in jackets, 0P or 2P. Same with everything in my closet, so it’s not like I’ve gotten huge. Just thought I’d chime in with a female perspective here!
[/quote]
Totally off topic, but that’s some good work Powerpuff.[/quote]
x2. That’s great progress.[/quote]
Hey there. Thank you!
[quote]Benanything wrote:
Oh and to possibly add on to the question, I’m sure y’all have tried getting friends/family (who don’t lift) on lifting and such, how much success do y’all usually have? In my experience, keep in mind that I haven’t been lifting for all that long, most people (5 friends and counting) just give up 1-2 months in regardless of how much I try to help them. Giving them a beginner programme to follow, asking them to track their macros, etc etc. Is it just be or are most people just not willing and for a lack of a better term, lazy?[/quote]
I haven’t had much success at all with trying to push someone to get in the gym and improve themselves. Because that doesn’t work. I have had more success with people who have actually come to me looking for advice. That’s a better situation.
I would never tell someone to track their macros unless it was something they wanted to do. Some people enjoy that sort of tediousness, but for others it’s overwhelming and sucks the fun out of life. Instead, I would make suggestions about food types, or say ‘you should eat more of X and less of Y.’ Macros can come later, if at all. I don’t track them, although I have a good general idea of where I’m at with them.
And you also have to find a workout program that suits a person’s personality. Some people will respond better to bodypart splits and a lot of isolation, some will want compound movements and full body workouts. Anything is better than nothing, and it’s more important to enjoy the gym at first. Otherwise they won’t come back.
[quote]Benanything wrote:
Oh and to possibly add on to the question, I’m sure y’all have tried getting friends/family (who don’t lift) on lifting and such, how much success do y’all usually have? In my experience, keep in mind that I haven’t been lifting for all that long, most people (5 friends and counting) just give up 1-2 months in regardless of how much I try to help them. Giving them a beginner programme to follow, asking them to track their macros, etc etc. Is it just be or are most people just not willing and for a lack of a better term, lazy?[/quote]
You have to realise have different priorities and goals in life. For a lot of people, lifting just isn’t ever going to be important to them. That’s not lazy, it’s just a different set of priorities.
[quote]Beast Status wrote:
this is my 9 month transformation.[/quote]
Really nice before and after there. That looks like a lot of progress in 9 months, particularly in your chest and arms. And that’s quite a lot of visible vascularity for such a short time. Were you lifting/ had an athletic background before?
After about 3 years/hit 200lbs (am 6"2)
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]Beast Status wrote:
this is my 9 month transformation.[/quote]
Really nice before and after there. That looks like a lot of progress in 9 months, particularly in your chest and arms. And that’s quite a lot of visible vascularity for such a short time. Were you lifting/ had an athletic background before?[/quote]
Thank you for the kind words. To answer your question: Yes I had been really big into lifting, sports for many years. I was in really good shape and had built a solid base of muscle over the years. I can say that this attributed to the fact that i was able to make decent gains over a relative short period of time. I also went from doing very minimal physical activity and no diet whatsoever to lifting 5 days per week while eating fairly clean. I’ve always been the type to go all or nothing. Aside from the physical changes, the way i feel right now is indescribable. It made me realize why I was so in love with fitness and why i will never go back to living the sedentary lifestyle i had slipped into.
[quote]Beast Status wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
[quote]Beast Status wrote:
this is my 9 month transformation.[/quote]
Really nice before and after there. That looks like a lot of progress in 9 months, particularly in your chest and arms. And that’s quite a lot of visible vascularity for such a short time. Were you lifting/ had an athletic background before?[/quote]
Thank you for the kind words. To answer your question: Yes I had been really big into lifting, sports for many years. I was in really good shape and had built a solid base of muscle over the years. I can say that this attributed to the fact that i was able to make decent gains over a relative short period of time. I also went from doing very minimal physical activity and no diet whatsoever to lifting 5 days per week while eating fairly clean. I’ve always been the type to go all or nothing. Aside from the physical changes, the way i feel right now is indescribable. It made me realize why I was so in love with fitness and why i will never go back to living the sedentary lifestyle i had slipped into. [/quote]
About your background with some weights and athleticism before you became sedentary, I thought so. 
That’s one reason it took a while for my lifting to really start to show. Besides being female, I didn’t have much of a foundation to start with. On the positive side, it made me sort of the textbook case - Eat! Lift! - since I wasn’t trying to gain muscle and loose weight at the same time.
It’s especially cool to see someone who looks so much healthier and more importantly, feels so much better. Well done, you!
I was going to add, I love to see dramatic before and after pictures.
Flipcollar, I was thinking it was this thread, but it must have been in another place where you put up a picture of your 18-year-old self and then a more recent one. Very fun to see those. Since progress is really incremental over the months and years, we sometimes don’t realize that the daily effort over time has turned into something pretty dramatic.
edited
I would say the first time non-family/friends acknowledged that I lifted weights was after 2 years of slinging iron like an idiot. All I was doing at that time was bench, curls and lat pulldowns, and had developed a pretty “flat” physique. This was because I was training in my high school gym, which had limited equipment (and, of course, because bench and curls are the only 2 lifts that matter).
When I got to college, our little weight room was still pretty small, but the big thing was that it had a shoulder press machine that I was infatuated with maxing out on. I spend a ton of time and energy really hammering this movement (among every other machine there, since I thought it was super cool to use the full stack on everything), and, when paired with a cafeteria diet, I put on like 10lbs in my first semester, most of it shoulder.
Adding breadth to the physique really seems to go a long way toward creating that look. I went back and saw old friends and they thought I got huge. I was still a massive 175lbs at 5’9, but after neglecting a muscle for so long and then hammering it hard and eating big, it made a dramatic impact.
And of course, I look back at photos of me now and I’m amazed how tiny I was and how people thought I was “big”. What’s funny is, people that have known me a while have the same reaction. They look at the same photos and go “look how small you were…why did we think you were big?”
I was out last night at a thing where I had to meet a bunch of new people, and had to deal with lifting questions all night. I had 1 weird conversation with a couple, who said they had a friend who is a bodybuilder (because people feel compelled to tell me such things). I said something like ‘oh cool, I guess he’s pretty huge, right?’ Response was ‘he’s about your size.’
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I was out last night at a thing where I had to meet a bunch of new people, and had to deal with lifting questions all night. I had 1 weird conversation with a couple, who said they had a friend who is a bodybuilder (because people feel compelled to tell me such things). I said something like ‘oh cool, I guess he’s pretty huge, right?’ Response was ‘he’s about your size.’[/quote]
It is thankfully a very rare occurrence that I have to answer a question/talk about lifting offline. People that know me know I compete in strongman, so they tend to just write me off as psychotic and that I don’t have advice that would suit “mere mortals”, haha. I’ve been cold approached by people on the street before, and that’s always just incredibly super awkward.
Absolute favorite question is always “how much do you lift?” No movement specified, no qualifier, no nothing. I’m going to just quote my disastrous yoke walk of 775lbs next time.
And yes, I also am constantly made aware of who is a bodybuilder in the nearby vicinity, haha.
Now we’re starting to use our heads!
Everyone looks better yoked. Even the ladies.
If you are “flat,” build some thickness. Do rows, build muscles to give your body “depth.”
If you are already lumpy front to back, work on width. Pull downs, chins, delt raises and presses. Lats and medial delts.
