I don’t mean size-wise, I’m talking mentally. When I first started in the gym I was just content to be strong, and in decent shape. Somewhere over the years though that stopped and I gradually stopped comparing myself to my peers. I remember the first time one of them called b.s. on some weight I said I could deadlift.
I realized that to the average every day person it probably was a lot, but I was no longer comparing myself to them, I had ‘moved up’. I realized over the last couple years it’s spilled outside of the gym for me as well. I no longer am content to just match or slightly exceed my peers. I want to go beyond them to the point that they think I must have had some sort of unfair advantage, and I think that attitude and drive started in the gym.
Unfortunately most people do not understand. I’m a coach (football/baseball) at the high school level. They see my added size as a negative. They think my obsession with lifting heavy is dumb. They just dont’ get it. It doesn’t bother me because I believe we all need something that drives us and motivates us. Something that is personal and not for anyone else. I don’t lift for anyone accept myself.
I feel much more confident after a great training session. It gives me goals to continue to work to. If I didn’t have that I wouldn’t have much to look forward to.
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
I’ve been lifting for so long I don’t even remember what I was like before I started.[/quote]
Mr. Nation, I just saw a TV show about sandwiches across the US and I saw Primanti Bros. Have you eaten there? It looked absolutely wonderful.
I never thought it would change me the way it did. I started lifting in Jan 2010, I was 245 lbs… (didnt look awful, im 6’ with a pretty big frame)… and now I’m at 200 lbs… and working on getting abs. Beyond just that, it has become my life. I am disciplined, motivated, and I know that people’s perception of me has changed. While people just assume that I did it so I could pick up girls and walk around without a shirt( I’m 20 and in college), that is just the icing on the cake. I do it for me. Its how I challenge myself to grow on a day to day basis, and is the one place in my life regardless of whatever is going on, I can clear me head; its a place all about me. Maybe that sounds selfish, but I don’t much care.
@light, I dont pick up girls, they now pick me. </obvious reason(cough lie cough)>
More seriously, I feel better about myself. I was a skinny fat slob, and it showed by the way I carried myself and approached people. Then again, that change may be due to age, as loudog said.
I have to say that it improved my life by huge amounts. It’s probably a mix of the testosterone increase, confidence, discipline and also proper nutrition.
I had no self-pride or self-love and very low self-steem. Traumas in my youth and teenager ages plus a dominant mother made me a weakling with women. You know the kind, women are a special kind of person, they never do mistakes, bow to their commands, etc.
Also, from where I come, “alpha males” are ridiculed because they are like a reminescent of past times, when the macho opressed women mercilessly and all that (feminexaggeration), so the standard behaviour was women dominating, taking poor care of their own bodies (“I’m happy like that, you have no right to tell me how I should look”) and making fun of any kind of manly behaviour.
Since I grew up with these things, you take them as granted, like if it was the normal thing.
But then I moved to a different country and one friend insisted on lifting, not for my body, but for my mind. “Squats squats squats, you must do it!”.
I finally conceded and the improvement started quite fast. It’s like if I was waking up from a very long slumber.
Now I recommend anyone (man or woman) with depression or steem issues to lift heavy and eat properly. If your body doesn’t improve, at least your mind will.
TL,DR version :
So, I got to say that lifting allowed me to see things from a different angle and gave me the confidence and pride to make changes in my life that allowed me to be happy.
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
I don’t mean size-wise, I’m talking mentally. When I first started in the gym I was just content to be strong, and in decent shape. Somewhere over the years though that stopped and I gradually stopped comparing myself to my peers. I remember the first time one of them called b.s. on some weight I said I could deadlift.
I realized that to the average every day person it probably was a lot, but I was no longer comparing myself to them, I had ‘moved up’. I realized over the last couple years it’s spilled outside of the gym for me as well. I no longer am content to just match or slightly exceed my peers. I want to go beyond them to the point that they think I must have had some sort of unfair advantage, and I think that attitude and drive started in the gym.
nb4 “You suck cocks Accipiter”[/quote]
Previously when I saw a picture of another male’s ass on the internet, I would recoil in horror.