Intro
These are false believes I had when I first started bodybuilding. And misconceptions I had in hindsight when started my fitness journey. Knowing these potholes, will save you time and give you a starter boost. So you wouldn’t have to make the same mistakes I made. With no further ado, lets get into it:
1. Not Joining The Gym
When I decided to hop onto this bodybuilding chapter of my life, I went straight to the mall. I entered a fitness store, and bought; a workout mat, skipping rope, and a shaker bottle. And that was it. Every day, I’d pullout my exercise mat out. I’ll do some skips, and do some body workouts for about half an hour. Although looking back I appreciate my decision of just taking action (and Just starting), however, this was not a recipe for the type of results I had in mind.
To actually put some meat on your bones and start building chunks of muscle in good time, you need to lift more weight than your bodyweight has to offer. You can’t rely on pure calisthenics. Because in time, your body adapts and gets used to that amount of pressure. Your muscles need to be constantly stimulated to keep growing. Don’t get me wrong, after a few weeks my body did tan up a bit, but it was nothing crazy. Joining the gym and using actual weights was the game changer I needed. By using weights which I kept increasing when my body starts getting comfortable was how I started buffing up in just a few weeks with consistency.
So get your self a gym membership from the get-go thereby hitting the nail on the head to get maximum gains for your effort. Join the gym to get your beasty Physique as efficient as possible.
2. Consuming Too large Meals at a Time
This was something I had to practically experience to grasp. Because after my little google research about “how to gain mass as a skinny guy” I came to the conclusion that all I needed to do was to suffocate my body with as much food as possible. Thus, I’d wake up early in the morning around 5 am. I’d have for instance: 10 slices of bread, with 3 fried eggs, and wash it down with a cup of tea. About 2 hours later, I will make myself a full bowl of oats boiled in milk and more fried eggs for protein. At school during breaktime, I would pull out my meal prep; a large portion of rice, and chicken drumsticks, which I’ll proceed to hammer down.And that’s how the rest of the day goes, just devouring my soul inside out.
This was all due to my little google research where I concluded that to gain weight as a skinny guy, you must devour as much food as you possibly can. Consume as many calories as possible in a day. So there shouldn’t be something like having “too much food” right? Although there is some truthful logic to this, it came with some side effects. I inevitably came to the realization that It’s unsustainable. Besides feeling stuffed and blotted 24/7, I began to detest food. I no longer enjoyed eating. Eating just felt like work- a burden that I had to indulge in.
So about 2 weeks into this “new diet”, my willpower started to dwindle and my motivation was also following suit. I started eating less and inconsistently. Sometimes even less than I ‘d usually consume prior to the new diet. So all the previous weeks of effort were going down the drain.
I would have had better results, and kept said better results if I prepped my meals a bit more realistically. Because then it would have been a lot easier to stay consistent.
So the moral of the story is that, even though yes! you need to consume more food than your body burns in a day, there’s no need of suffocating yourself from the get-go. After having a too large of a meal. You are going to become so stuffed that taking your next meal would be a challenge to contend with. And even if you could get it in, after a couple of days your resolve is going to break eventually.
Be considerate. Let your body ease into it gradually. Up your intake a bump at a time. As you progress further with the diet and workouts, your body will naturally let you know it needs more and more energy, and it would be a lot easier to consume more and most importantly- stay consistent.
3. Consuming Mass gainer supplements
This was also something that I got into right away when I started my home workouts. I bought about 6000g sack of mass gainer and I was taken it about twice a day. fixing them in between the already large meals I was taking. I know, overkill right? lol.
I’m gonna keep it ๐ฏ with you. Do not invest in any supplements when starting out. Especially Mass gainers. They are just a load of sugar and low quality calories.
I know what you are thinking, having a mass gainer in your diet will give you that easy extra boost in calories, make everything easier and more convenient right? But that’s not optimal, especially when starting out. As I have mentioned in a previous blog (https://mgkayzen.com/http-mgkayzen-com-bodybuilding-for-complete-beginners/). When starting out, you want to nail your diet first. You want to give your body the best quality nutrition which can only be found in good old natural whole foods. It’s not all about the quantity of calories, but the quality of calories you are ingesting in your body matters too. Taking a thousand calories of processed sugar of low-quality calories (which is what you find in most mass gainers) will not be the same as having that same amount of calories in whole foods.
Don’t get me wrong, you could find some quality mass gainers, but they are expensive. And even if you don’t have any problem investing in them, I wll still recommend starting out with no supplements.
When you embark on this fitness lifestyle, there are stages to this journey. The primary and most important aspect is to get your nutrition in order. When you’ve already mastered that and you’re already seeing results, then you could start thinking about the secondary add-ins i.e. supplements that will give you an extra edge on top of what you already have working for you.
So don’t expect to find your answer in a bottle. first put in the effort to get your nutrition in order, then after that you could consider bringing supplements into the mix.
By the way, I’ve been working out for almost 2 years now. I have never gone back to using mass gainers. The only supplement that I take is Whey protein. Which I use for my post-workout.
4. Lifting Weights That Are Too heavy ( AKA Ego Lifting)
This is where my ego kicked in. Being one of the skinniest guys at the gym, I always felt the need to ‘perform’. And was eager to rush to the next level, get results ASAP. So I tend to try lifting heavier weights. As a result, my technique suffered a lot. And when working out, your technique is the most vital component you should always keep in mind. It’s not about how heavy you can lift or the number of repetitions you can do – It’s about the quality of those reps (and not quantity).
It’s uncommon not to find that one guy in every gym who seems to be always rushing through his reps. Or the guy that’s always struggling with his weights and just wouldn’t admit to go a bit lower. All the best to them, but that’s not optimal and most effective strategy for working out. Your technique has to be spot on. And you can not maintain a good technique when lifting weights that your body is not yet ready to tackle. You only need to lift enough weights to stimulate the muscles. It shouldn’t be too easy that your muscles aren’t feeling it and It also shouldn’t be too hard that your whole body begins to quiver after 2 reps. There needs to be a balance. This is workout ethics 101. Humble yourself, one bite at a time – don’t rush it.
Use weights that are heavy enough to excite your muscles, and nothing more. That, coupled with good technique is the recipe for gains ๐๐ฝโโ๏ธ.
And there’s a lot of research that backs this up. That proves that during hypotrophy – when working out to build muscle; your technique, the amount of time your muscles are put under tension are great indicators for the quality of results you are going to get. So take your time and lift with precision (quality over quantity always ๐ฏ).
5. Not Having a Plan
This was one of my first newbie blunders. After joining the gym, I would literally just walk in the gym and go crazy on all the equipments. As if I was trying to get a taste of everything. Everyday was like a full body workout, and not a very effective one at that. With time, I began to experiment with more structural workout plans until I got a more rounded & complete plan that works excellently for me.
So from the jump, you should workout a plan and structure your exercises and not just be going crazy on the whole gym equipments like its a buffet.
6. Working Out Too Much
This was a lesson I had to learn the hard way.
When I discover a new found interest- something that I find intriguing and I’m hyped about – I go nuts on it. Which isn’t necessarily bad in itself. So, with this mentality of mine coupled with the motivation to see results as soon as possible. I often overwork my body into burnouts.
Besides the fact that I was working out 6 days a week for about an hour everyday, I also had basketball practice twice a week and was taking gymnastic classes 3 times a week. And mind you I was fitting all this around my school classes. I would go to bed late and had to wake up early but still put in the work by the end of the day. Even though I was feeling exhausted during the day, I felt like ”the man”. I felt proud of myself like ” yeah, I am really putting in the work, living the hustle”. All that stuff they talk about in motivational videos, I felt like I was living it.
Around that time when all of this was going on, It happens that I needed to do a medical check-up for school. I remember not being excited bout it. It felt like a hassle because the clinic was located outside the campus . But looking back now – It was a fortunate thing to happen when it did. I didn’t even have a flicker of a doubt that something was up because: 1- I never ever had any medical conditions, and 2- I was living more than healthy (so I thought), thus, my health condition ought to be perfect.
But when I went to collect my results, the doctor was like “we need to talk”. I was informed that I was putting too much stress on my body and my heart is struggling to contend with all of it. The even suggested that I should be transferred from basketball to a much less strenuous sport. And that is when I understood this was serious. For the first time in weeks I actually had to sit down and review my weekly activities. I had to make a decision. Something has to give. And I ended up given up gymnastics. Because if I’m already on hypotrophy workouts, working out my muscles to failure daily, engaging in yet other demanding physical activities is unnecessary and counter-intuitive.
7. Not Having Enough Rest
I touched a little bit about this point earlier, and in my previous blog, but it’s that paramount that I can’t stress it enough. Even a car needs servicing here and there let a lone the human body. There were days-on-end when I used to function on 4-5 hours of sleep when as a body builder you actually require more rest that the average recommended hours of sleep. You should be kind and generous towards your body. Give it enough time to heal & recuperate. If you can’t give your self 7-8 hours of uninterrupted good night sleep, find time during the day to take a nap, your body will be grateful.
8. Settling
When I started working out seriously. I decided to really focus on this new hobby and put my all into it with consistency and everything. About 6 weeks later, I remember waking up in the middle of the night to ease my self. I remember feeling quite heavy trying to get off the bed, like someone was sitting on me. As I look through the mirror, I was astonished by the body of the man that stood in front of me. In just six weeks I could barely recognise my body and people were amazed too. Around that time, everyone I meet was commenting about it. Asking for tips and hinting on wanting to join the gym (feeling inspired). That’s when I knew, I had officially entered the league. I had successfully changed my physique from the skinny guy to something more.
So I raised my bar and desired more. But the only problem was that, ironically I wasn’t putting in as much work as I did before, my whole enthusiasm was in question. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, “why am I being sluggish all of a sudden? where’s all my will power?”. And that’s when it hit me. I had never being this big in my whole life. And after achieving this feat, becoming bigger than the average guy and muscular, I felt like I had already made it! I say I want more, but subconsciously I was in awe of what I’ve already achieved.
So because I have arrived at this junction where I now appreciate what I see when I look in the mirror, something I have never had before, I now feel like I have arrived and can’t see the need to keep pushing forward. I felt content.
Thus, I lost my flame. It was only when I noticed my body shrinking cuz I was slacking off in my diet that I got back in the ring. That was when I remembered the reason why I started all this. I wasn’t working out for a few months to achieve a summer body and then just put everything under the rug. No, this was a Lifestyle that I had chosen. And it is not going to be considered a lifestyle if I don’t keep living it. Till my last days. This is the new me now. What I see in the mirror is the new normal. And that’s how I was able to get back in the grind. I was learning to be content with what I am while being excited with who I can become. Because I can always be more. I can always keep kayzening.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and it was helpful. Hopefully this will help you skip some unnecessary potholes in your journey. I made them so you don’t have to. Until next time- stay hungry ๐ฏ.