I guess when you’re the emperor you can be naked with whomever you desire
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been a while since I measured, but yeah, think I’m about 6" too.
My 13 year old niece has bigger hands than me.
my hands are at least average if not above average. Around my closed fist is almost 12". It looks like a miniature ham hock on a toothpick lol
I have ramblings to share. Everybody take a seat.
“Why do you lift?” is a question that gets harder the more you think about it, particularly if you are not involved in the sporting aspect of weight training (i.e. powerlifting, Olympic lifting, lifting weights to get stronger for a sport). Justifying in your head all the time you’ve spent in the gym can get a little tricky sometimes, but deep down you know you love it.
But why do you love it? Each possible answer seems to have its own contradictions.
Answer #1: It’s fun.
Yup, just good old fashioned enjoyment. And it is… sometimes. Setting PRs feels great (although a little bittersweet because you know you need to go heavier next time and that’s a hassle), leaving the gym feeling like you’ve accomplished something is satisfying, and there’s nothing more rewarding than looking in the mirror and seeing the fruits of your labour.
But there are times when it is very much NOT fun, and this is where that reasoning falls down. Think about it like this: if you played golf, would you play golf in freezing cold conditions, or in the pouring rain? Of course not; it wouldn’t be fun. Why, then, do you drag your ass to the gym on days when there is literally nothing you would like to do less? Days when you’re tired and grumpy, your joints are all killing you and all you want to do is curl up on the sofa with a HUGE cheat meal. These workouts are not fun, so if having fun is the reason you train, why the hell would you put yourself through it?
Answer #2: For girls (or guys, or whatever).
Ah yes, am I right, fellas? High five to any of you who’ve had a girl be like “oooooh such big mussels.” I think for any of us guys, particularly ones who started training while they were still young and stupid, getting jacked to impress girls was numero uno on our list of reasons to lift. After all, girls like muscles, right?
Well, some of them do, but a lot of them do not. Problem with girls is they’re not quite so easy to work out as all that, otherwise someone would have discovered a formula for impressing them by now (and no, that guy who wrote The Game does not count so take off that ridiculous hat). Just look at those “girls choose their ideal man” type articles that surface every now and then. Every time the majority are going for a guy who is fairly lean, but apart from that, pretty average.
But jacked guys don’t want to accept this. We say “girls only choose average looking guys because they’re insecure about their own bodies” or “a muscular physique always turns more heads,” which is such arrogance it defies belief. Firstly, the whole insecurity thing is a little too convenient for me, and I think it’s the opposite - vanity, by which I mean ours, not theirs. It’s not that they’re insecure, it’s that they don’t want to date a vain guy, and, rightly or wrongly, us bodybuilder types have that reputation. As for the turning more heads thing, if you drove past a cow that had been hit by a truck, I bet you’d look. I also bet you wouldn’t want to take the carcass home and fuck it. Turning heads is not always a good thing, and just because everyone’s looking at you, doesn’t mean they like what they see.
It’s true that the more jacked I get, the more attractive girls that seem to be attracted to me, but you know what also happens the more jacked I get? I get older, and as I get older I become more self-assured, confident, resilient and decisive. All attractive qualities. The girl I’m with now is the most beautiful girl I have ever known, to the point where I actually thought it was a wind up when we had our first date (met online - I was sure I was getting catfished). Thing is, even though I was jacked when I met her, I could also sing and play guitar, and when it’s late at night and she’s had a hard day she asks me to sing to her, not hit a double biceps pose.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been times when my physique has DEFINITELY helped me seal the deal! A girl once told me my body was “like a work of art” and that’s a happiness that money can’t buy, but even though looking good for the ladies/fellas might have been your top priority when you started training, I’d be willing to bet that after a few years of it you don’t give a shit about that anymore and are just happy within yourself the way you are (and if not, well, you should really work on that).
Answer #3: It’s good for you.
Fair enough. I mean, muscle mass is a fairly good indicator of health, so it’s hard to argue with that. Lifting weights is definitely good for you…
…if you’re smart, which we’re not!
Yeah ok, there are so many benefits of weight training on your general health I’m not going to get into them here (because, really, you should know already), but let’s be real here for a second. Putting 600lbs across your back is NOT good for you, and adding an inch to your biceps really doesn’t benefit your health all that much either. I get that muscle mass does a lot of really nifty shit, but there’s a point where it becomes ridiculous. Rupturing both your patella tendons trying to squat 800lbs has done you ZERO favours.
Oh sure, you could do a fairly gentle 3x a week, full body with 2 days of LISS cardio and one HIIT, but who the fuck wants that? We want to fill ourselves full of hormones, force feed ourselves multiple times daily to the point of discomfort and drink stimulants all day to get us through our workouts.
Bodybuilders are hilarious. Any hardcore forum has so many threads dedicated to keeping healthy with supplements, but the sad fact of it is that if you are living the bodybuilding lifestyle (with all its illegal trappings) then it is going to take way more than 5g of fish oil and 1g of curcumin to keep you alive.
So yes, while lifting weights is healthy in theory, for many of us the reality is very different. I am not trying to discount those for whom lifting weights has been all about going from dangerously obese to a healthy bodyweight and suchlike, but for the “eat clen, tren hard” generation, the health message has been well and truly lost.
So why the fuck are we lifting? Beats the shit out of me. I just know that I’m too far down the rabbit hole ever to go back. It’s funny; I’m bulking hard at the moment and have gained a little fat along with it. My girlfriend says she likes me “a bit squishy” and prefers that to when my waist is “like a girl.” Lifting weights and my physique has become part of my everyday life, my identity. When I’m eating my bodybuilder lunches out of tupperware and my colleagues say annoying things like “how do you eat like that every day?” they don’t realise that they’ve answered their own question. I eat like this every day because I do it every day. Same with the question “how do you motivate yourself to go to the gym so much?”, the answer is right there in the question. It’s because I do it so much that I can motivate myself to do it.
So the answer to the question: why do you lift?
I suppose it’s because I do.
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Interesting shit in here @Yogi1, thanks for sharing. I teach English and one of the things we always address is, “Why do we read?”
According to C.S. Lewis, “We read to know we aren’t alone.”
Of course, that has absolutely nothing to do with why we lift, but I thought it would make me look smart to quote somebody smart.
Further evidence of my stupidity. You claim [quote=“Yogi1, post:125, topic:221798”]
Think about it like this: if you played golf, would you play golf in freezing cold conditions, or in the pouring rain? Of course not; it wouldn’t be fun.
[/quote]
Um, yeah, I did. All the time. One Christmas I played thirty six holes with my brother in sub 40’s rain, and it was epic. I’ve also played in extreme heat and humidity, lightning, freezing rain, and in snow. I believe that proves my stupidity.
But, it is also that mentality that keeps me going back to the gym 4-5 times a week, that blind devotion to get better that creates a habit that sticks with you.
Yeah, it’s nice to hear a girl that sees you with your shirt off for the first time say, “Wow, you have a really great body.” And, it’s nice to wear clothes off the rack and have them look good. And, it’s nice to be able to pick heavy shit up. But, I think those are just bonuses to the real reason why we lift. Writers frequently speak of not enjoying writing but enjoying having written, and I think lifting is similar.
But, eventually, it all comes down to what Annie Dillard said about writing. I’ll change it to make it appropriate.
I lift because I have to.
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You don’t know my life
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Bat shit crazy here. I lost two good jobs back to back, couldn’t even buy a job in this town, went completely bonkers, didn’t care if I ate or drank, got stupid weak, which was devastating because I have always been strong for a female.
Ended up losing over 60 lbs. Felt like death. I didn’t even realize I had lost it. I am not even sure why or how this started for me. I started with BW crap and a set of 5 lb dumbells. Progressed from there to heavier crap, made myself deathly ill, because appearently, when you make yourself crazy the moderation thing gets lost.
The thing I DO know, is that it is in me now. It is something I have wanted to do for years. Maybe that’s it. I know I will never be a bodybuilder, or competitive in way, but I am in love with it. I am not very good at it, not consistent as I should be, but it makes me happy. Even a bad day lifting is better than not doing anything. So, for me it’s about self preservation. It burns off the crazy, gives me focus.
And maybe, just maybe, my lil dude might learn something good from my example.
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that’s some funny shit, man. Trust me to pick the one sport with an ex-pro on the forum![quote=“The_Myth, post:126, topic:221798”]
Writers frequently speak of not enjoying writing but enjoying having written, and I think lifting is similar.
[/quote]
yeah I think you’re right on the money with this one
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so where are you at now in terms of your training, bodyweight, etc?
I train for all those reasons plus some more
My father used to lift,and he was quite strong and muscular.He started lifting after 10 years of laying off and after 6 months he was half benching 315 for 2 reps and repped 200 without a warmup when I called him a sissy for doing half reps.When I was 4 years old or so he always flexed his biceps if front of me(now that he hasn’t lifted for 15 years consistantly his upper arm is 16.3 inches) and talk about how much weight he used,inviting me to fight him and stuff
So I always wanted to be big and strong.I remember telling him at a very young age that one day I’d be so strong that I’d beat him up
So he did a great job raising me up I guess
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Doesn’t mean your analogy is wrong, just confirms that I’m sick.
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Right now I am doing a half assed version of 5/3/1 for hardgainers. I am pretty good about getting the main lifts in, but the last few weeks I have been slacking on the assistance. This last week my dad has had medical emergencies, but I think we have that sorta out now. I am hoping to start another cycle Monday. I am going drop my TM back a couple of cycles and go from there. Since April:
BP up from. 45lb to 80lbs
Squat 65 to 140lbs
DL 155 to 190lbs
OHP 50 to 55lbs
Now, understand I have a bunch of garage sale/ thrift store junk and a homemade rack. Yeah I know it’s pathetic but, I think I am doing pretty good for a crazy, old chick!
I can really relate to that, I come to a pretty similar conclusion when I think about that question. At this point, being relatively (!) strong, big and lean has simply become part of my identity. If I had to write down a few bullet points about who I am as a person, apart from some stuff that has no bearing on this sort of thing, being a young, athletic male would certainly be a crucial part of it. The “young” part I’m going to have to scratch at some point, but to simply stop lifting weights (and not substitute it with something comparable), would mean giving up a part of who I am (and still want to be), I just cannot think of myself as being someone who doesn’t do this.
that’s great progress! You’ve practically doubled your bench, and more than doubled your squat! Can’t really ask for any more than that
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“dad strength” is totally a thing
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I was talking about that with the mrs the other day. Imagine you could go back to not lifting and caring about diet. You’d have all your evenings free, could eat whatever you wanted without giving a shit. Such a blissfully ignorant existence…
I lift because I can’t imagine not; because I am convinced I can achieve things I thought impossible before I started and there is no way in hell I’m leaving anything on the table; and because it lets me do something constructive with what seems to be a natural tendency to be angry more than not.
I’m almost certain it’s made me a better human being.
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Thanks! I am hoping to pull 200 by my 48th birthday, ( Jan 1) I was shooting for double BW (240) by then but… shit happens. I will get there eventually. Still think if I wasn’t so friggin old I could do it… lol
You’ll get it. My mum pulled 198 lbs at 132 aged 70.
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