[quote]forlife wrote:
I’m nowhere near as big as you, and never will be able to use the
quote function in the T-Nation forum.
[/quote]
fixed
I think I quit caring what people on the interwebs thought of and labeled me back when I was around 25. I’m 36 and if someone does or doesn’t think I’m a bodybuilder at the end of the day how does that affect me?
One thing I have figured out however, I was always quick to blame my “shitty genetics” for my lack of gains, when in reality it was my “shitty work ethic” that was the culprit. I think if more people came to this realization they’d be pleased with the results.
Oh and I still stand by my claim I made awhile back for a functional and general fitness/wellness forum. It would (or should) settle things down, especially on this forum. I’m just not sure what some of us would do without the drama however…
I think the problem we’re getting here is that this isn’t for everybody, but everybody thinks that this is for them. Most people confuse lifting seriously with showing up. And it seems that on this site showing up makes you somebody who knows enough to give advice. The forums are becoming like some post-apocalyptic bizzaro land with no order.
[quote]randman wrote:
forlife is giving a bad rap to us old guys. I could care less if you call me a bodybuilder. I know I’m making more progress than 98% of the 20 something year olds on this board and have now built a pretty good base. I didn’t get started till my early 30s. Quit ya bitching and using age as an excuse. None of us ole guys wanna hear it.[/quote]
X2.
I started at 32 back and July and I’m getting people around me commenting about me getting bigger. The tape measure agrees. And I know I’ve gotten alot stronger. I work out a college gym during the days and my local gym on weekends. In the college gym the only guys working hard are my co-worker and the athletes. The environment at my local gym is much better since there’s alot of big 30 something guys working their asses off. I see people in their 30’s making better gains than alot people in their 20’s but they have to work MUCH harder for it.
No one said people starting in their 30’s can’t gain a significant amount of size if they eat right and workout hard so I’m not sure where this side of the argument came from. We just gotta be smarter about our bulks and keep a watchful eye on the process. While we probably can’t gain 100 lbs of muscle (without the juice) in our 30’s, I don’t see anything shabby about putting on lets say 50 in those 10 years. It wouldn’t make pro bodybuilder big, but there wouldn’t be any mistake about me working out or not.
I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. I have nothing to prove/disprove, and it wasn’t my intent to get into an argument.
Bottom line is that we each have our goals, and we each have to pay the price necessary to reach those goals. A bodybuilder defines himself, and doesn’t need anyone to do it for him.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. I have nothing to prove/disprove, and it wasn’t my intent to get into an argument.
Bottom line is that we each have our goals, and we each have to pay the price necessary to reach those goals. A bodybuilder defines himself, and doesn’t need anyone to do it for him.[/quote]
And the Shugarting of the thread is complete. Start argument, look silly, non-sequitur sum up. Yep, it’s all there 
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
forlife wrote:
I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. I have nothing to prove/disprove, and it wasn’t my intent to get into an argument.
Bottom line is that we each have our goals, and we each have to pay the price necessary to reach those goals. A bodybuilder defines himself, and doesn’t need anyone to do it for him.
And the Shugarting of the thread is complete. Start argument, look silly, non-sequitur sum up. Yep, it’s all there [/quote]
lol Shugarting
great word choice
Sidenote:
Unless you’ve walked on stage and competed you can’t really call yourself a “bodybuilder”. You’re just a dude in the gym lifting weights and trying to “get swole”.
Unless you’ve done a powerlifting competition you can’t really call yourself a “powerlifter”, no matter how many times a week you lift the big three. You’re just a dude in the gym lifting weights trying to get strong.
You lift weights. Hopefully 4-6 times a week. Congratulations. By benching with the big plates you’re stronger than 99% of the people in your gym. By even attempting a squat or deadlift you’re stronger than 99.999999999% of the people in your gym.
It’s been said before and it’s very simple. At the end of the day you are either progressing or you’re not. If it takes you 3 years to comb through every internet message board post from every famed coach on the planet and you still don’t have a clue, then you fail, start a new hobby.
â??The very definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.â?? - Philip Mangano
I don’t care if you’re doing TBT or body part splits. I don’t care if you’re eating 2000 or 4000 calories a day. I don’t care if you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in supps or zero. If what you’re doing isn’t working then change it.
There is no such think as a “clean bulk”. There’s gaining muscle and gaining fat. There’s losing muscle and losing fat. There’s gaining strength and losing strength.
Figure it out.
i think if we’re arguing semantics i want to just put in my two cents, i look at being a “bodybuilder” as one who competes, i wouldn’t call myself a soccer player if i just did that for fun on my free time, i would just be someone who likes soccer, so i guess a non-competitive lifter training for size would be “building their body” not sure if it makes sense but it’s my two cents.
and as someone who is about to be 21 i’m starting to learn how glad i am for finding this place. i think though that the reason the older guys (30-40s) tend to work harder is also because i think, at my young age, that the older you get the more you appreciate that time in which you have.
it’s like the saying of not knowing what you have until you lose it. if you are aware of this and aware of this ahead of time then you can get the most out of what you do have, in this case health and time.
goals are goals, but make sure you’re not selling yourself short, take advantage of whatever you can, because i can tell you one thing, i am starting to work harder and harder each time i go to the gym and i will GUARANTEE i will be PISSED THE FUCK OFF if i can’t see a difference, and a clear one at that, because no change to me means that all this “work” i thought i did was a waste of time.
all i’m saying is don’t waste what you have. if you’re gonna half ass it in the gym then don’t even bother going, you are wasting your own time and money that may (for you) be better spent elsewhere…
So you last 2 posters are saying that PX isn’t a BBer?
[quote]Aggro wrote:
So you last 2 posters are saying that PX isn’t a BBer?[/quote]
You apparently haven’t seen pics of PX. I don’t see why some fat guy, who you can’t even tell lift weights, talking about eating as much junk food as possible to gain weight should qualify as a bodybuilder.
Also there’s no way he could ever diet to get on stage. That’s why he keeps telling people to bulk to draw attention away from the fact that he is just incapable of eating anything besides pizza.
(did I miss any reasons?)
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
forlife wrote:
I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts. I have nothing to prove/disprove, and it wasn’t my intent to get into an argument.
Bottom line is that we each have our goals, and we each have to pay the price necessary to reach those goals. A bodybuilder defines himself, and doesn’t need anyone to do it for him.
And the Shugarting of the thread is complete. Start argument, look silly, non-sequitur sum up. Yep, it’s all there [/quote]
That is some funny shit right there LOL.
There are people we have seen on this very forum who have competed before they ever built any real size on them. I think by this point, we have all seen people like that jumping on stage. To claim that competing alone is what defines a bodybuilder when many are competing before they even BODYBUILD, is illogical.
I agree fully PX, there are people on this site who don’t compete and I would classify as BBers. There are those that do compete and I would consider them BBers, and finally there are people who do compete that I wouldn’t consider BBers. I was merely making a point to the 2 posters I asked the question of because they seemed so resolute on their definition of a BBer. Tumbles I have seen pics of PX, and if you can’t tell the quality difference between a PX post and a Hawaiiliftermike post then I don’t know what to tell you. Interestingly enough in some cases Hawaiiliftermike’s “shut up and eat” comment is what PX has given tons of so called hard gainers who claim to want serious size. It’s all about the context, you can prove damn near anything when it’s taken out of the equation.
Like I said I don’t need acceptance from an internet forum goer. I do find it curious as to why the 2 people (and probably more like minded that haven’t piped in) I questioned would attempt to compartmentalize the lifestyle thereby pushing out people who do have serious size and do know how they got it, and have shared that wisdom with countless people on this very forum. I mean does your size intimidate the 160# personal trainer that fucking much? I’m also wondering if he was attempting an attack of if he just didn’t know any better.
Oh and I too have to pipe in how brilliant the term “shugarting” is.
[quote]spyoptic wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
To properly bulk, visit and eat at fast food restaurants daily, it helped me get to 247lbs very quickly.
PICS!
[/quote]
He’s come a long way since his original pictures, but he clearly shouldn’t be giving advice on “bulking up.” Posts like that that come from people like him should be deleted. He’s not at a stage to be giving advice. But no moderater looks for such things on this board, unfortunately.
[quote]goochadamg wrote:
spyoptic wrote:
hawaiilifterMike wrote:
To properly bulk, visit and eat at fast food restaurants daily, it helped me get to 247lbs very quickly.
PICS!
He’s come a long way since his original pictures, but he clearly shouldn’t be giving advice on “bulking up.” Posts like that that come from people like him should be deleted. He’s not at a stage to be giving advice. But no moderater looks for such things on this board, unfortunately.[/quote]
If we’re going to start deleting posts, most of the bodybulding forum would be so much dust in the wind. It’s for people to use a little judgement in regards to who they listen to, not for mods to go around deleting posts. This isn’t China for God’s sake.
And I agree that Mike has come a long way. Good job.
Why is this thread so long?
Bulking is relatively easier when compared to cutting down, although similar principles (and common sense) apply. I mean if you’re bulking it’s all about adding or reducing a couple of hundreds calories a day and check how your body responds it terms of fat gain and weight gain altogether and THEN adjust accordingly. You can add supplements and all kind of fancy stuff to your diet but that’s how, at least, I’m starting to approach the ‘bulking’ process.
Most of the time I think that most of the posters on these forums don’t realize that not everyone is a carb burning machine. Not everyone can get bigger on the same calorie surplus either. There’s NOTHING like one right way to bulk up that would apply to every training individual. There are pointers tough (read again the paragraph above). I can’t tell an individual ‘hey eat x amount of cals and you’re good to go’. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s all about experimenting.
I think the best advice that one can give is ‘use some freaking common sense’.
BC
[quote]Professor X wrote:
There are people we have seen on this very forum who have competed before they ever built any real size on them. I think by this point, we have all seen people like that jumping on stage. To claim that competing alone is what defines a bodybuilder when many are competing before they even BODYBUILD, is illogical.[/quote]
this i agree completely with as well, i did not mean for it to be taken like “hey i went on stage once and weighed 120 lbs, i was RIPPED!!” sort of way, that’s just fucking retarded. so i guess i retract the competing part of it as a main qualifier
basically its a stupid argument. just get bigger, strength and size, worry about numbers and “official” stats if that is your goal, but if you NEED the measuring tape to see any bit of progress then you’re doing something wrong
EDIT: this has just been my two cents, i in no way will claim to be a knowledgeable source, i just give my opinion as someone new to the game and am open to any criticism/ suggestions/ advice
[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
If we’re going to start deleting posts, most of the bodybulding forum would be so much dust in the wind.[/quote]
Quality over quantity. The boards seem to have more TYPE2B’s than not, and I personally don’t see that as a good thing.