Yes You Can

[digitaldiscipline]

chiller: I am starting to wonder whether it would be physically possible for me to ever have muscles. I guess I plod on with the gradual changes and see what happens, but it increasingly feels as if I'm in the wrong body. Can one build muscle gradually, without doing all that balls-to-the-wall stuff?

Me: Absolutely.

You do something today. You do a little bit more tomorrow. And so on. If today you do ten wall pushups and leg lifts, and tomorrow you do eleven? You'll build a little bit.

You've got the perfect non-weight solution near to hand - start by carrying your lightest cat around for, say, five minutes. Work up to ten, then grab a bigger cat and repeat. I'm sure they will object strenuously to being carted about and cuddled. ;-)

The trick of it all is to just keep challenging your body to do something you didn't ask it to do yesterday - whether it's one more rep, or one more pound, or one new manouver.

Those folks who talk about "packing on X pounds of muscle in Y weeks"? The majority of that is bullshit. In my case, it's something like fifteen pounds of muscle in EIGHTY weeks (as in, since summer of 2009, when this icon picture was taken).

Comments

[vatine]

I believe, but cannot prove (nor find cites for) that it's easier to build muscle fast if you haven't already built a lot of muscle.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

honestly, the ability to build when you have very little or are an untrained athlete far outstrips that of the semi-trained.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

it's the rookie training effect; if you are just starting out, you have a lot more potential for strength and muscle gains than someone who has been doing it for a couple of years and has already made the "easy" gains.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks.

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it can take years to see significant changes. I remember the first three years of my training I felt I was simply wasting time. The changes are so slight at first that they can not really be discerned.

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

P.S. Tom puts on a average of 2lbs of muscle per year. His training program is sick and so is his diet. Those are very sobering and realistic numbers for those just realizing how hard gains are.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

aye. it makes me want to frown vigorously at the folks, especially women, who fret about "getting too big" as soon as they pick up anything heavier than fifteen pounds.

[miss-adventure.livejournal.com]

Yes. This. After a decade of serious weight training, a couple of my size XS shirts are ever-so-slightly snug.

[mykal.livejournal.com]

I really like your cat training method and would like to know more. Perhaps a series of videos? You could call it CATisthenics. :D

[etcet.livejournal.com]

You know, I have made dippier exercise vids... and have a quartet of feline minions...