Dear Former Me,
I’m writing you today because I want to tell you that making significant muscle gains not only can be done, but it’s much easier than you think. Not only can you make gains, but you can thoroughly enjoy the process as well. While your intentions are good, you are very misinformed on what actually works for building mass.
First and foremost, clean up your diet! Eating healthy is not just for people trying to lose weight. Just because you are a hard gainer doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want. Read up on proper nutrition because it is extremely important for building muscle. Man up and start eating your vegetables, they aren’t nasty. Start eating lean proteins and healthy fats. Figure out the difference between complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates. Your diet of pizza, burgers, chips, Oreos and brats is not only not going to help you gain muscle, but will actually hinder it.
I know you think you’ve tried everything, but you haven’t even scratched the surface for what really works. Yes you need to eat more, but that doesn’t mean eating more junk food and anything with a lot of calories. Start drinking water and cut it out with all the sugary soda. Those calories don’t count for anything and the sugar has a negative effect on muscle. You may want to take it easy on the alcohol too. You wouldn’t believe what that does to your potential gains.
Get consistent with your workouts. Going for a few months and taking a few months off will get you nowhere. If you keep lifting all winter and then taking every summer off, you’ll continue to start over from scratch. Start doing more compound lifts. There are more out there besides the bench press (which by the way you don’t need to do that the exact same way every time either…) Grab some heavy weight and start getting to your breaking point. If you quit as soon as it gets tough, you won’t do yourself much good.
Stop ignoring your legs. If you do get big you don’t want to be that guy with the big upper body with little chicken legs. Oh, and you wouldn’t believe how much exercises like squats and building up your legs will help your strength gains in your entire body. You play a lot of sports, most of your strength in sports comes from your legs. If you build up your leg strength it will help your game tremendously.
Also, enough with the whole “I don’t want to lift today because I’ll be sore for whatever sport I having coming up” thing you always let stop you. It doesn’t have merit and it won’t effect your play. This is what ultimately gets you to stop lifting every summer, how have you not noticed that? When you have a sport every 2 or 3 days, when exactly do you plan on lifting and not being sore for the next game? If you really are concerned about performing well on the field, get in gear and get yourself in shape!
You keep acting like you want muscle so bad, but you aren’t willing to work hard enough to get it. Yes you are willing to go lift, but it takes A LOT more than the simple act of lifting to actually get anywhere, especially for a hard gainer like yourself. Don’t get offended, you know darn well it’s true. It’s time to stop acting like you want it and time to start working like you want it.
Lastly, if you would just follow this one piece of advice you wouldn’t even need any of the other advice. Stop trying to figure everything out for yourself. Do some research! The internet is full of material that can help you get started and help you figure out exactly what you should be doing to get results. How can you expect to get good at something without making any effort to figure out how it’s supposed to be done? Get out there and arm yourself with knowledge. Once you do this, you’ll be on the right path. With a little guidance, you can turn yourself into something you never thought possible.
I know you don’t have a lot of confidence right now, but trust me if you see this thing through you will gain more confidence than you ever thought possible. When you get a taste of how good it feels to start getting the body you want, you’ll only want more. I can’t even describe to you how good it feels, but you have to get there and find out for yourself. This much I promise you though, it will be well worth it. It will improve your life more than you can imagine, and things will never be the same. You don’t have to be the little guy anymore.
I wish you the best of luck. Although luck really has nothing to do with it…
Your Better You
Happy Lifting!
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