Inside the gym, and even worse in the gym’s corner of the internet, is a lot of focus on limitation instead of on possibility.
A natural who cares about “natty” status, and is obsessing about not doing too much is never going to make the progress he could’ve if he instead was focused on “how far can I go” with an open mind.
There’s all sorts of dudes you can find online who have that “natty or not” argument going on about them.
Eric Bugenhagen and Wes Watson both come to mind as youtubers like that.
When I contrast the mirror between 16 and 26…a good deal of what I see is just natural possibility.
All I did was always train, not sweat the minors, and not buy into the natural limitations I had read online.
If I was starving, just living on carbs, hopeless/depressed, and without a gym membership, every night I still did my pushups. That’s consistency.
Consistency plays a huge role.
Consistent effort, where you are, with what you have right now is big picture.
Most are self harming by instead sweating small stuff.
Equipment and dietary perfection don’t matter much in the decade+ of time involved in getting jacked.
Take a kid with heart, zero equipment, living on naught but top ramen and 2 squares of school food that cost him 35¢ each, and within a year he can go from fat body or skinny fat to playing school sports, and decently.
When a natural is willing to carry some fat mass on top of significant muscle his lean body mass will be higher than the bodyweight naturals tend to step on a bodybuilding stage at, and higher than the military weight regs for their height.
At 19 or 20 a bodybuilder told me if I was to cut from my then 230, I’d be having a six pack at a very big looking 205.
Now I’m 265 or so, sometimes seeing low 270s on the scale, and way stronger/more thickly muscled than in the prior example. I’d bet that six pack would be there at 220 at a minimum if not 230, 235. More muscle in the peak stage of bulked will equal more muscle when back down to lean.
That path of reasoning leads me to say there’s no reason that Eric Bugenhagen and Wes Watson both couldn’t be “natty”.
I believe I’ve seen Eric state he’s 6’1″, and know I read Wes say that he’s 6′. Both are around 230 with abs, and my frame of reference gets me to around that weight at 6′ if I was to cut.
So obviously a 6 footer can be natural and have abs at 230 in spite of what the internet says.
Don’t do yourself the disservice of sweating “can’ts” or conceding to the imposition of someone else’s idea of limitation upon you.
Focus on taking action.
Just go. It doesn’t need to be the idealized “perfect” path, it just needs to be moving forward.
What can you do? Nah, it’s what can’t you do.
There’s abundant positive possibility.
Persistence & Tenacity