What Does Your Spouse Think of Your Weight Training

Off Topic
101

[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
The first thing you should learn in training is goal-setting. It’s the old SMART acronym, your goal, whether long term or short term should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and trackable by time.

If you can’t do all these things, it’s not a goal, it’s wishful thinking. A loving spouse can help you reach your goal, but if you’re dicking around with half-assed bullshit and no measurable progress, and have unrealistic expectations for years at a time, and are only fooling yourself, who the hell would put up with that?? [/quote]

Yup, pretty sure you just summed up the whole thing right there.

It’s funny, I asked my wife, who does get irritated from time to time that my gym time often comes first when we have plans (I do work around shit too, but sometimes shit works around me), if it would be worse if I was still 180lbs.

“Yeah it would be worse. What the fuck were you doing there this whole time? I mean go, but don’t expect me to work around your gym schedule, your skinny ass would be working around mine.”

102

[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
The first thing you should learn in training is goal-setting. It’s the old SMART acronym, your goal, whether long term or short term should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and trackable by time.

If you can’t do all these things, it’s not a goal, it’s wishful thinking. A loving spouse can help you reach your goal, but if you’re dicking around with half-assed bullshit and no measurable progress, and have unrealistic expectations for years at a time, and are only fooling yourself, who the hell would put up with that?? [/quote]

Thank you…which is the point I was trying to get across.

If your spouse can’t see your SERIOUS PROGRESS then why the hell would any thinking person believe they will support your SERIOUS attempts to get out of intimacy, housework or anythiong else all n favor of gym time?

It just doesn’t make sense.

In weight lifting, you had better either be big enough to justify that “serious” label, be getting big fast enough for it, or lifting enough weight to make it very evident.

If you fail at all of these things, you fail at being serious…and you deserve the crap you get from your wife.

103

Professor X : The original question was what does your spouse think of your weight training?

So what does YOUR spouse think of your weight training?

I am in gyms 10 - 12 hours a day as both a coach and a trainer. My woman expects me to be in the gym. Expects me to prepare food ahead of time and swallow handfulls of supps with meals. She picks on me when i don’t train!

“Having a rest day are we? Getting a bit soft are we?”

“what? no steak for breakfast?”

She finds herself highly amusing.

104

Let’s back this up a bit. The situation that started this link and question posed was, what would you do if your spouse said you were too big. That does not suggest the individual had never worked out nor does it suggest that they have been SERIOUS about lifting their whole life.

It was about the opinion of a spouse who now finds the other spouse less attractive and that loss of attraction is having success at weight lifting. That is it.

If you want to imagine someone who had some success putting on muscle in college, who let themselves go, got married, got back in shape and the spouse does not like the change - so be it.

If you want to think of a guy who feels youth is wasting away and starts lifting and his newbie gains transforms him beyond his spouses tastes, so be it. The question is what would you think? Hell, it could be your spouse had not said anything for years and finally decided to tell you that your sex life sucks because she is disgusted by your two year bulk?

I am not sure how or why it matters so much how and in what time period this occurred. If you want to imagine the situation of ‘Smelly’ Bell in the before and after steroids builds, that’s fine.

If you are already really BIG before you meet your spouse, how does this apply? If you meet your spouse while you are competing, how does this apply? I was putting forth a situation that a guy at the gym is going through and thought it posed an interesting question.

PX, I have written my story before on here and why I have this perspective. Cliff notes:
Start lifting at 20 - at 5’7" 120 and about 8" arms.

Lift ‘seriously’ for a year and half - get to 170 lbs lean. Arms grow but always an issue - as is mid-back instability.
Shoulder injury and final semester (23 hours) I just maintain where I am.

Hit by car - neck injury - nerve impinged between disk and bone spurs (which developed from back injury (muscle tears) when I was 13 and source of instability)

Diagnosis - handicapped - loss of functionality in my arms and hands, Dr’s - back specialists - say that I would never lift again.
Goal 1: be able to feed myself…
Goal 2: be able to hold a job…
Goal 3: find remedy to migraine headaches, constant hand pain and numbness

I drop down to 140 lbs.
It took four years before I could lift pink weights once a week. With lifting came some positives, increased strength, and some negatives, increased hand pain-numbess and headaches if did ‘too much’. Bear in mind this affected my ability to hold a job every damn day.

Each year involved some time on weights and some time off. When I went back to school, there were times I had to chose between typing or lifting because of how my hands and neck/head would respond.
Each year I have tried to push my progress, and I have had success in that.

My neurologists keep telling me the impingement is preventing any gains in strength and if I push it too much will damage the muscles. So, I try to lift smarter and still try to make gains.
Right now, I am 185 lbs with chronic migraines, vertigo, and am still woken up each night from back pain from the injury when I was 13.

My hands are still an issue, but a much smaller one. That said I am light years better than I was and I attribute it to keep pushing myself and my body in the gym - and being smart enough to listen and adjust.

I look like I lift weights but am not the size you would call SERIOUS or SUCCESSFUL. Sounds like you are suggesting I should have quit or maybe should still.

I don’t know, I would say going from not being able to feed myself to now defying what my doctors have called possible progress. I know some people in the gym who are lifting with brain tumors, cancer, and coming back from serious illnesses. From the outside, it looks like they are not making any progress - that they are just wasting their time. Then there are the people who probably are just taking up space - who knows.

I am not looking or pity, congratulations, condolences, or what ever emotinoal tripe you might think I am fishing for. I am not claiming to be a body builder, have no intentions to compete, and I rarely post in the body building section because of that.

It just irks me when people on here bitch and moan about others, chastise those who do not show the same dedication in their results, without ever considering for a moment that maybe their path has been different.

105

[quote]stockzy wrote:
Professor X : The original question was what does your spouse think of your weight training?

So what does YOUR spouse think of your weight training?

I am in gyms 10 - 12 hours a day as both a coach and a trainer. My woman expects me to be in the gym. Expects me to prepare food ahead of time and swallow handfulls of supps with meals. She picks on me when i don’t train!

“Having a rest day are we? Getting a bit soft are we?”

“what? no steak for breakfast?”

She finds herself highly amusing.

[/quote]

I’m not married but the one I go out with lately knew from looking at me that I must live in the gym. That is why I don’t see the problem. If you are very serious and your spouse gives you shit about it, it is probably because you aren’t as serious as you THINK you are.

Again, if you LOOK the part, your significant other would have to be bat shit insane to think you won’t be doing that with much of any free time you have.

106

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
Let’s back this up a bit. The situation that started this link and question posed was, what would you do if your spouse said you were too big. That does not suggest the individual had never worked out nor does it suggest that they have been SERIOUS about lifting their whole life.

It was about the opinion of a spouse who now finds the other spouse less attractive and that loss of attraction is having success at weight lifting. That is it.[/quote]

If my wife told me I was becoming less attractive because of an endeavor I have been serious about since freshmen year of college, she would not be my wife.

The problem with that scenario is YOU CHANGED…yet expect for your spouse to not say anything in opposition.

[quote]

If you want to think of a guy who feels youth is wasting away and starts lifting and his newbie gains transforms him beyond his spouses tastes, so be it. The question is what would you think? Hell, it could be your spouse had not said anything for years and finally decided to tell you that your sex life sucks because she is disgusted by your two year bulk? [/quote]

Then divorce her. I mean, if you really are serious, what is the problem? You now have to make a choice in that situation…one that involves either compromise or divorce. Your pick.

Again, YOU CHANGED. You now have to deal with the consequences.

[quote]

PX, I have written my story before on here and why I have this perspective. Cliff notes:
Start lifting at 20 - at 5’7" 120 and about 8" arms.

Lift ‘seriously’ for a year and half - get to 170 lbs lean. Arms grow but always an issue - as is mid-back instability.
Shoulder injury and final semester (23 hours) I just maintain where I am.

Hit by car - neck injury - nerve impinged between disk and bone spurs (which developed from back injury (muscle tears) when I was 13 and source of instability)

Diagnosis - handicapped - loss of functionality in my arms and hands, Dr’s - back specialists - say that I would never lift again.
Goal 1: be able to feed myself…
Goal 2: be able to hold a job…
Goal 3: find remedy to migraine headaches, constant hand pain and numbness

I drop down to 140 lbs.
It took four years before I could lift pink weights once a week. With lifting came some positives, increased strength, and some negatives, increased hand pain-numbess and headaches if did ‘too much’. Bear in mind this affected my ability to hold a job every damn day.

Each year involved some time on weights and some time off. When I went back to school, there were times I had to chose between typing or lifting because of how my hands and neck/head would respond.
Each year I have tried to push my progress, and I have had success in that.

My neurologists keep telling me the impingement is preventing any gains in strength and if I push it too much will damage the muscles. So, I try to lift smarter and still try to make gains.
Right now, I am 185 lbs with chronic migraines, vertigo, and am still woken up each night from back pain from the injury when I was 13.

My hands are still an issue, but a much smaller one. That said I am light years better than I was and I attribute it to keep pushing myself and my body in the gym - and being smart enough to listen and adjust.

I look like I lift weights but am not the size you would call SERIOUS or SUCCESSFUL. Sounds like you are suggesting I should have quit or maybe should still.[/quote]

That depends on your GOALS and apparently YOUR WIFE. I don’t have that problem. I wouldn’t marry someone who didn’t get me. I would rather stay single than do something like that.

I’ve been hit by a car before among a lot of other shit including one medical problem that I see others whine about but I deal with it. Just because I don’t list out my setbacks for public consumption doesn’t mean I got to this size easily.

You do what you have to in order to see results if you want this bad enough.

That is all there is to it.

If you can only lift half a year and your wife is giving you a hard time for it…even though you aren’t that big, you have A WIFE PROBLEM, nothing more. You either deal with that problem head on or expect to hear more crap for going to the gym.

That is why you get to know that person real well before walking down the aisle.

107

I told my “spouse” from day 1 that i was an active athlete. I worked out everyday and sometimes twice a day and she would have to live with it if she wanted to be with me. She was suprisingly supportive and she was once an high level freestyle jazz dancer and understood where i came from. Luckily she still does and i got all the support in the world. Food ready when i come home from practice and fridge filled with all i need and none of what i dont want.

108

[quote]Professor X wrote:

If you can only lift half a year and your wife is giving you a hard time for it…even though you aren’t that big, you have A WIFE PROBLEM, nothing more.

That is why you get to know that person real well before walking down the aisle.
[/quote]

Let me real clear, this is not about me. My wife supports me. I met her before I could lift regularly. Hell, I met her before I was comfortable eating in front of others.

I never said you had it easy. But please allow for the possibility to that you still might have had it easier than others. That does not take away in any way from the effort you have made or the success you have had. Look, I teach. I know some kids who try really hard do not make as high of grades as some of the other students. Some may be genetics (intellect, learning disabilities), some may be backgrounds (educational and otherwise) and some may be just having the study skills to learn effectively. This makes a difference. If I am to draw some line in the sand and say everyone who does not reach this mark in this particular class should drop out of school - I have failed in many ways, not just as a teacher. This does not mean I inflate their grade, but I do not judge their complete worth as a person on it. (This something we see on this site - though it appears to be lessening.)

Here, I will say it. You are special, at the skinny end of the bell curve. Not everyone is.

All I am saying is some do this when the huge build is already off the table. You and them may not agree on what success is. But, bear in mind I posted this in GAL, not BBT.

Things happen, life changes. While you can try and get to know someone as well as you can before marriage, but that marriage (hopefully) will be for a long time. This thread was supposed to discuss such a change. Once you introduce things like mortgages, kids, etc. priorities can change. Looking buff in a T-shirt may take much less importance for a spouse when there are other stresses at play. This is why I stressed spouse, unless you have been in a emotional /economic relationship over a long time, a time in which the partners have had the chance to change significantly (in their bodies, opinions, etc.) good or bad. How are you supposed to judge from the outside?

So your answer to the thread. ‘I am so damn big she should know better’. Cool, that’s what we all figured.