Today, I’ve decided to stop lurking in the shadows as a rabid cult follower of T-Muscle and actually start to write a thing or two. That being said, it can be hard worming your way into a well-established community of avid forum-frequenters who may be reluctant to let some kid write all over ‘their’ thread space. But, if you’re anything like me, you actually enjoy talking to people who are also married to the barbell, who live and breath nutrition and personal fitness, and who are obsessed with the intelligent and relentless pursuit of muscle. The ‘young but wise’ Nate Green said that the best way to get better at writing is to actually write, so whether or not you have an open mind, I’m going to be writing for the sake of writing, no more, no less.
As a 19 year old male university student, there are very few things on my mind other than building muscle, sex, and… okay, well, that’s about it. Sure, I’m focused on school, and work, but let’s get serious. When you’re a testosterone-driven kid living on your own for the first time with all-day access to a university gym, surrounded by college girls, what else is going to be on your mind? Sure you’ll go to every lecture, but that doesn’t stop you from reading the latest article on nutrition that Shugart posts, ogling the most recent T-Vixen, or getting hard from CT’s ‘I, Bodybuilder’ program between the professor’s PowerPoint slides.
In fact, between T-Muscle and T-Nation, a young and aspiring lad seeking guidance need not look further for all his basic needs. Sport talk? Check. Political talk? Uh-huh. Pros frequenting the forums to answer your trivial noob questions? Yup. Daily articles to consistently grow your base of knowledge? You better fucking believe it. Hell, there’s even a few demodivational poster threads packed with memes to satisfy your inner internet nerd. Amidst to all of these educational and mentally stimulating articles, we find Atomic Dog. I personally believe that every guy between their adolescent to early adult years should read, absorb, and learn from every last one of these articles. They kick your ass, make you think, provides a laugh, and teaches you more about the world, testosterone, and general manhood than just about anything else you’ll find on the internet. In fact, this past year, between university with it’s hefty tuition, residence and book charges, and T-Muscle/T-Nation articles, which are as free as oxygen, I reluctantly say I’ve learned MORE from the T-community than anything at my lectures. Probably because my profs don’t have pictures of T-Vixens on their websites. I live and breathe T-Muscle. Everything I do at the gym, every food that reaches my plate, it’s influenced by some tidbit of knowledge from the vast archives here. In the last year, I’ve made huge gains, went from a fat fuck to a much less fat fuck, reached my first over-1000 lbs lift, and have gained a world of confidence. And the info was free. If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.
What irks me though is that in spite of this encyclopedia of information, people still insist on fighting it. People still insist on poptarts and McDick’s for bulk foods, skip breakfast while trying to lose weight, still think that a slow grinding set of 12 reps on the bench with their spotter buddies doing half the work, and are so dead-set on old habits that they aren’t willing to learn. It’s the same people that will be in the gym 6 times a week and maybe do 2 hours of actual lifting. It’s people who still do 12-15 reps for ‘cuts’. We live in a culture of ignorance with enlightenment at our fingertips. It’s like starving yourself when you have a table full of food in front of you.
So don’t starve yourself. What the people on T-Muscle and T-Nation have done for all of us is an incredible thing. The amounts of money people pay for some of this info is ridiculous, and they’ve handed it to us for free. Fucking use it.
-TR
