Working out is a sport that I love. I've practiced it for more than 10 years now. I plan on doing it for as long as possible. For me, it has multiple benefits, including MENTAL HEALTH! The way I see it, working out is one of the few sports where you are competing against yourself. It's you vs you.
As Friedrich Nietzsche said, and I qoute, "But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself."
You vs you - one of the greatest battles in one's life; one of the greatest successes you can achieve is looking back and recognizing that who you are today is better than who you were in the past.
Unfortunately, nowadays, this way of looking at the sport has changed a lot. What do I mean by this? It's become more of a competition with some people you don't really know. Yeah, you see some post on some social network and this becomes some sort of a benchmark. Regardless of gender, the internet is full of pictures and videos of people that look a certain way or can bench press X pounds or can squat Y pounds and on and on.
Look, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that people shouldn't post this stuff. But for the love of God, don't make your training into you vs some random fitness influencer. Something like "I must look like this" or "I must lift at least as much as X". Getting some motivation is one thing, but obsessing about a certain physique or "record" lift ... that's not good.
Here's what I mean. If you are a guy and genetically you have wider hips and narrower shoulders, there's no way you can look like Arnold, no matter how many times you hit the gym. If you are a woman and your hips are quite narrow, no amount of squats will make you look like {Insert Female Celebrity Name} 😀.This is just a fact. Some people "won" the genetics lottery and "by default" their bodies have the "right" proportions.
If you are just average when it comes to genetics, working out will help and will improve your physique. But let's be real ... miracles occur quite rarely 😀 If your arms are short ... no amount of curls or tricep rope extensions will make your arms longer. The point I'm trying to make, to put it bluntly, is that you can't change your skeleton.
So, please, for your mental sanity, stop excessively comparing yourself to X or Y or Z. It's just not worth it. Also, most of us have jobs or businesses or w/e daily activities to make a living. How can you compare yourself, average Joe that works out 2 hours a week, with some Chad that works out 5 times more than you.
Another thing about working out that unfortunately messes with people's heads are posts/videos like "my insane X months transformation". Look, everybody is different. Some people achieve their goals faster, others a bit slower.
It's like seeing a new V12 Ferrari blasting by you and wanting your 10 years old, 1.6 litre car to do the same. It's just not going to happen. What IS possible to happen is you blowing up your engine - in gym terms, that's you busting up something because of ego lifting.
And since we are on the topic of "insane X months transformations", a lot of these are fake. For most people, you just can't lose weight so fast; and if you do, chances are it's not healthy; you can starve yourself and you will lose weight fast; but you'll also lose a lot of muscle mass and there's one particular muscle that you should be veeeery concerned about in this situation - your heart.
Same thing goes for people who in 3 months put on 20 kg of lean muscle ... Dude, that's just BS.
The point I'm trying to make is that you should NOT believe everything that you read/watch online.
The truth is that all good things take time. When it comes to working out, if you are disciplined, consistent with your trainings and constantly and safely improve (volume and/or weight), you WILL see results; but be patient!
This is one of the key things this sport teaches us - PATIENCE! Our bodies will adapt to pretty much anything we throw at them; but it will take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day.
So, keep it you vs you, be patient and don't believe everything you find online.
At this point, some of you might be thinking: "Dude, people compete with other people in this sport!! The f*ck are you talking about?!"
True, people compete in this sport just as well as people compete in sports for ages. However, those who compete professionally are usually those that started this sport with a massive advantage - what we talked about above - genetics. Look at pictures of your favorite lifters when they were young.
The problem I have with average Joe "competing" with another average Joe, in the gym, is that it mostly always leads to some ego lifts that end up with one or both of the average Joes getting injured 😀. Also, what's the point if you are not competing professionally? Just so you can say you're the "best" in your gym or amongst your friends? Fine, but there's also someone out there, maybe in the neighbouring gym, that is stronger than you. So again, I ask, what's the point? If you bench 150 does this mean that you are "superior" to someone who benches only 120 ? Maybe the dude that benches 120 does 30 pull-ups and you can only do 15. Now what?!
I'll close with this. Learn to have realistic expectations, don't fall for BS (there's a lot of it on the internet) and stay focused on your own fitness journey; ultimately, that's all that matters.
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