There are guys out there who have been working out for a while and have seen little to no results in terms of muscle gains. Those guys start to wonder if it’s possible for them to get a ripped fitness model, or if they’re fighting an uphill battle that they’ll eventually lose. The road to being ripped and shredded is definitely paved with a lot of blood, sweat, and self-doubt.
The funny thing is that most of the guys who work out for a long time without seeing results will eventually lose this uphill battle because they have given up hope, they feel like they were treated badly at birth in terms of bodybuilding genetics. The interesting part of all of this is that most people aren’t born with what are considered good “bodybuilding genetics,” but what people should know is that with enough hard work, anyone can become ripped and shredded. Yes, it may be easier for others to gain muscle, they may have the perfect body type, but what counts most is not what we are born with or without, what matters is what we do with what we have.
Some people have a harder time packing on mass, while others struggle to keep their weight down, it seems like everything they eat turns into fat. All of those people can overcome whatever “weakness” or “disadvantage” they were born with and develop muscular bodies. This situation is like a sportsman who is very talented but is lazy and doesn’t train, and a person who isn’t that skilled but is a hard worker in that sport, if you were a coach and had to choose who to play with, you would play the worker because you know who will last and be effective for the full 90 minutes (if the sport is football) not someone who won’t be useful for most of the game because they can’t keep up just hoping for a moment of brilliance. In muscle building, you’re like the hard worker, you’re not someone who was born with great muscle building potential, but you use what you have and make the most of it. We can’t all be Usain Bolt, but if we train hard every day, and consistently, we could run pretty fast and even challenge the Usains of this world if they start to slack off.
Before you stop thinking your genetics are working against you, you need to evaluate your diet, many people think they are eating healthy foods that are conducive to building muscle when in fact they are not, many people trying to gain muscle often don’t they eat which makes it difficult to gain muscle mass. Also check that you are training each muscle enough and make sure you give your muscles enough rest time because muscles don’t grow in the gym, they grow outside the gym. During your workout make sure you’re not lifting weights that you can do 20 reps for only 10 reps, increase the weight so the weight challenges you, you need to be fighting for that last rep. Don’t have long rest periods between sets; try to make your workouts intense, you don’t need to spend a lot of time in the gym if you’re working out well.
There are many things that you could be doing that would prevent you from seeing the growth that you want. Modify your training, don’t give up in the middle of the battle and keep fighting. If you don’t think you’ll gain muscle and you think your genetics are against you, then you’ve already lost. Forget genetics; think about proper nutrition, lifting weights (experiment with different rep ranges and sets), and cardio, and you’ll be on your way to getting ripped and shredded. If you believe and visualize that you will be crushed and work hard to achieve that end goal, then it will happen.