Don’t Get Too Jacked and Other Spooky Tales

People say a lot of stuff about fitness. Most of it’s not helpful, but some of it’s downright laughable. Sadly, too many of these silly things come from people who profess to be fitness professionals. I guess anyone can hang a hat on that title.

(Source: simpsonsworld.com)

Don’t feel bad if any of these statements have escaped your mouth. It’s all good. We get better as we learn.

That said, don’t get caught repeating these things or we shall all be forced to secretly laugh at you. Your mission is to stop this nonsense whenever you hear it.

“I don’t want to get too jacked.”

(Source: onnit.com)

Or, “Ugh, I woke up so yolked,” said nobody ever.

So, here’s the thing about getting too jacked. That’s a train your gonna see coming across the plains, long before it ever arrives. In fact, good luck.

Unless you’re into plotting out and weighing portions for every meal, eating like a saint, plus taking a battery of supplements, then forget it. Getting jacked is no accident.

Most folks who actively pursue getting jacked will never come close. Not to mention, of the ones who do come close, they’ll constantly chase goals screwed by their own perceptions, never satisfied.

This comment is really just a long-winded excuse you plan to whip out when you fall short of your goals. That way you can say, “Well, I said I never wanted to get jacked in the first place.”

You might as well say what you are really thinking: “I don’t plan on really trying because I’m afraid of failure.”

Instead, identify what are your goals versus what they are not.

“High reps for cutting, lift heavy for mass.”

(Source: broscience.co)

You can pack on weight lifting with high reps. Conversely, you can easily drop body fat lifting heavy. The bigger factor for losing body fat or gaining mass is your eating.

Food is the bricks from which your build your muscles. You cannot build without bricks, no matter how heavy you lift. On the other side, no matter how fast you whip the weights around, if you keep tossing bricks on the pile you may not get a nice wall, but you’ll get a pile of something.

If you are eating for your goals, then any work counts. That said if you’re trying to cut you will welcome any movement.

Conversely, if you want to build mass lifting heavy can tell your body what to do with those bricks, er food, but you can accomplish the same goal by controlling your intensity.

Many bodybuilders do not lift maximally. It’s all about intensity and volume.

“I stopped lifting because it made me bulky.”

(Source: youtube.com)

Yeah, that probably happened, but it wasn’t the lifting.

Repeat after me, I cannot build walls without bricks. Bulk is not a matter of testosterone, it’s not a matter of weight lifting, but they both can contribute. It’s more about food.

You may think your muscles grew, but what probably grew more was the body fat covering those muscles.

Put it this way: if you stop eating completely, but lift heavy every day, you will not gain mass. You will probably get very weak, but if you could keep going, what you would see is the fastest weight loss program ever.

Instead of this, admit that you didn’t make a nutrition plan or you did, but you didn’t stick to it.

“Grip the bar wide to make your [favorite big muscle] grow wide.”

(Source: bodybuilding.com)

Muscle shape works like balloons. The most you can do is blow them up bigger or deflate them. You cannot change the shape.

You cannot make your back or chest grow wide by grabbing the bar wide. That is right next door to thinking you can stop your family’s history of male pattern baldness by not wearing hats.

You are programmed to build muscle, to gain body fat in certain areas, and even to lose hair based on your genetics. This is not to say you can’t pump up your balloons, er muscles, as big as possible.

That’s as much a matter of diet as anything. [Is there an echo in here?]

(Source: youtube.com)

Before I get accused of shaming, this list was intended to be in good fun; dead serious, but snarky. Ease up.

None of us were born with any of this knowledge. We’re all borrowing it from smarter people who came before us. That said, it’s time some of these perceptions went away.

Let’s start with you, now.