Those who have known me since age 15 practically can’t believe that I am the same person physically.
It’s amazing the difference that a bit shy of a decade can make.
So you’re a hard gainer. Yep, there are hard gainers. It’s gym common knowledge. Ok? Lets move on.
This memory still is in my mind vividly…
14 years old. August, just before the school year starting. The shower (at home) after an afternoon 2 a day practice.
I’m washing off the body wash looking down at my man tits. 5’9″ or 5’10” and a sloppy 212lbs, put that into kilos or stone if applicable. I feel an intense disgust…at myself, my genetics, basically the world.
See I’ve read on prepping for the NFL combine, I was reading about lifting weights at 13, 2 years before I ever touched a weight. I’m showering thinking about the leanness and cardio many/most of my teammates possess, and I’m this weak fat fuck always gassing. Wondering how the fuck I’d ever survive anything hard (remember I want to be infantry at this point), and how the fuck could I ever bench 225 once, let alone for reps.
Drying off these thoughts consume me. What if I’m always fat? Always weak? Always gassing? Thinking I have bad genetics. Barely eating watching kids leaner than me chow down at lunch, the thoughts are consuming me.
What if? On and on and on.
Then it stops and I see…
“I’m going to fucking fight for it” the thought taking over my mind, the power growing as I think it more and more. “If I am in fact doomed genetically at least I’ll fight, I’ll see if I’m really doomed. After all isn’t it better to fail giving a true shot, your all, than to not try? Fuck rationality! I’ll fight for this, and either find the facts were wrong or fail and proudly die a fat weak slob having fucking fought heart and soul to change it!”
Drying off from the shower that day was major life philosophy moment.
That first semester was shitty. I ended up quitting football and wrestling that year (they were too haarrddd) and then got angry and started to train.
It was very misguided, but there was effort behind it.
(Related story: My female gym teacher saying to the football coach and someone else “This would be the easiest job ever if I had a class full of students working like him” as I was hauling ass on some step up intervals, and the coach going “Yeah we could use a team of guys training hard like him”)
The best thing of this misguided self applied intensity of the early days was I learned to get mean. As you go, no mentors, self taught you’ll iron out the right way and wrong way.
You’ll likely find a lot of the common knowledge, the “facts” are in fact very very wrong, limiting to say the least.
You’ll realize that perfect diet, training, etc are far overblown.
A random internet comment on a YouTube video of a UFC fighter circuit training will plant a surprisingly strong seed in your mind as to overtraining. In a sea of comments going “drugs!overtraining!good genetics!” One voice of sanity states something along the lines of “have you ever stopped and thought he ran himself into the ground long enough wrestling K-College that this is something he is able to recover from easily?”
Oh how that planted a seed. “If he ran himself into the ground and eventually adapted, can’t I?”
You’ll have good days, bad days, there will be burnouts, but through it all you’ll realize…probably on some day where every weight felt like the world on your shoulders…that now all these years later…
“You’ll never bench 225” (said by a football playing classmate, and a different football player, different incidences) and 8 years later 225 x 19, with 225 x 15 on a regular basis.
“I bet you can’t even do 10 pushups” and you drop right there backpack on for a bunch (50+), stand up, brush the dirt off your hands and reply “your turn asshole”. He didn’t know you were almost a year into daily pushups at that point, and now you have done them daily for the large majority of a decade.
My point here being if you’re a hard gainer in all eyes, and with all “rational” reason agreeing…throw that shit out of mind and give yourself time.
5 years later (with effort) you’ll be getting strong. 10 years even better.
At that 10 year mark (I’m getting close) commit another decade and watch how everyone else but you got dehabilitatedly injured, or quit, and how you with years of effort destroyed all notions, including your own, of what you were physically capable of. Now being a god damn beast!
-J