Thinkin' Out Loud: Fundamentals

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
41

[quote]silverhydra wrote:
joe shumsky wrote:

if jay cutler, and 99.9% of his peers at the olympia, are showing up to compete at “roughly” the same bodyweight (given the same relative level of lean-ness) year after year, is the whole bulking-cutting cycle really necessary or desirable? seriously, i’m asking!

I never knew there were 1000 competitors at the Olympia, and that 999 of them were near the same bodyweight, who’s the odd one out?

Learn to use percentages. In fact, learn to make logical arguments first.

[/quote]

Extremely poor grasp of statistics aside, is he seriously not able to figure this out for himself? It’s a competition. There is no gentleman’s agreement between competitors that ensures nobody will come in heavier or in better condition than anybody else on stage.

I mean, WTF? The whole point is to beat the next guy. If the OP is proposing that the highest level pro bodybuilders should stop off-season bulking altogether (and eliminate the competitive aspect of bodybuilding - which was apparently never that important in the first place ;)), then we may as well take it to its logical extreme and tell them to give up training altogether. Hey, they may not look as impressive in a speedo, but the guy with the best genetics is still gonna win, right?

It’s the sport of the future: bodybuilding is dead - long live bodymaintaining…

That’ll have the side-benefit of preserving the self esteem of dudes that, for whatever reason, don’t want to get big, but still feel the need to do more posting than listening (usually about how they are on a one-man crusade to revolutionize bodybuilding for the good of all).

While we’re at it, we could apply the OP’s theory to all sports: elite level sprinters should all agree to stop running so fast, and reduce their speed to a brisk walking pace. That way, there’d be no need for all that unnecessary and exhausting training and the slower guys won’t feel so left out, either…

We can all live together in a small, ripped and perfectly proportioned world. And if anybody does step out of line and literally get too big for their boots, we can trap them underground like the Morlocks in The Time Machine. Of course, the big guys will emerge at night to hunt down and eat the smaller guys, but that’s just natural law…

42

@ OP:

If you want to publish an anti-bodybuilding article, go and do it on a site that isn’t a bodybuilding site - cause I dont think anyone is going to listen to you. Seriously. You’re targetting the wrong audience.

43

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:
If you want to publish an anti-bodybuilding article, go and do it on a site that isn’t a bodybuilding site - cause I dont think anyone is going to listen to you. Seriously. You’re targetting the wrong audience.[/quote]

Seeing as how you’ve already posted on this thread, I’m assuming the above comment is aimed at me and not the OP. If so, my last post wasn’t an anti-bodybuilding ‘article’: I was taking the OP’s line of thinking and carrying it through to its ridiculous conclusion. Read it again.

44

[quote]roybot wrote:
Ben_VFR85 wrote:
If you want to publish an anti-bodybuilding article, go and do it on a site that isn’t a bodybuilding site - cause I dont think anyone is going to listen to you. Seriously. You’re targetting the wrong audience.

Seeing as how you’ve already posted on this thread, I’m assuming the above comment is aimed at me and not the OP. If so, my last post wasn’t an anti-bodybuilding ‘article’: I was taking the OP’s line of thinking and carrying it through to its ridiculous conclusion. Read it again.

[/quote]

No, it was at the OP I should have stated that, post has been edited.

45

[quote]Ben_VFR85 wrote:

No, it was at the OP I should have stated that, post has been edited.
[/quote]

Cool. Just making sure that I wasn’t coming across as a bodymaintainer.

46

[quote]joe shumsky wrote:
thank you very much for the article on bulking… it was a good read and interesting points were surely raised. like i said, i’m well aware that this type of, for lack of a better word, “yo-yo dieting”, is a commonly accepted practice in pro-bodybuilding… i still have my doubts, though, as to whether or not the approach has any long-term merit for a regular guy of average genetics and no drugs. but i do appreciate the sentiment.

and thank you for the direction to the thread with professor x’s pics, as well. despite the insurmountable chip on his shoulder, i’ll give the guy credit where it’s due: he is a very, very large man. i’m not sure if there are more pics around that i haven’t seen, but if and when he gets down to single digits, i anticipate he’ll be completely untouchable…

we really musn’t forget, though, that professor x’s results are atypical, to say the least. he is surely probably the only person, or only one of a very few people, on this board who has achieved such a level of size (hence his notoriety here). and this is despite the fact that he trains and eats in what can only be called a fairly typical “bodybuilding-esque” fashion. what i mean, here, is that just about everyone i encounter who’s interested in bodybuilding trains using some sort of extended body-part split routine and stuffs their face whenever possible, but, for one reason or another, they don’t look like the professor.

long story short, professor x has alot more in common with a pro-bodybuilder than he does with me (and probably with most of you.) subsequently, using his results as average, normal, or to-be-expected seems to be a somewhat gross distortion of the truth/reality, don’t you think?[/quote]

Not that it wasn’t abundantly clear after like, your 2nd post, but clearly you will just keep saying what you need to in order to convince yourself of whatever it is that you want. Not once in this entire thread have you thought to backpedal and look at what you’re doing and question it, you just come back with some retort out of the bad genetics ectomorphic hardgainer handbook©.

Also, your comment about CT and his thoughts on bulk/cut cycles aren’t correct either. He may have published articles stating that muscle gain/fat loss simultaneously are possible, but even he will tell you(and did AGAIN on the Anaconda thread) that for maximal muscle gain a true bulk is necessary, followed by proper dieting to preserve as much of that as possible.

Oh and the Pro-BBer bulk/cut cycle thing… when you are near your absolute genetic maximum for mass, adding a few pounds in one year is a big deal; if it wasn’t those guys wouldn’t be doing bulks in the offseason. Your lack of understanding of simple situations like that should show you that you have some learning to do and that maybe listening to what people here are telling you is a good idea, yet because you’re so afraid that would make your time invested already as ‘wrong’(something pretty much every BBer has been at some point, and learned from) you fight it like the plague.

47

You know, if as a society we stopped catering to the lowest common denominator so much shit like this thread wouldn’t happen.

Well this is the internet, maybe that isn’t true.

48

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
You know, if as a society we stopped catering to the lowest common denominator so much shit like this thread wouldn’t happen.

Well this is the internet, maybe that isn’t true.
[/quote]

That’s hard to do when some of the authors even here have made that their primary audience. I mean, that is where ideas like “splits work best for steroid users” come from. It makes no sense at all but they eat it up…because the info is for “hardgainers”…and every single one of them thinks they are one.

49

[quote]Professor X wrote:
countingbeans wrote:
You know, if as a society we stopped catering to the lowest common denominator so much shit like this thread wouldn’t happen.

Well this is the internet, maybe that isn’t true.

That’s hard to do with some of the authors even here have made that their primary audience. I mean, that is where ideas like “splits work best for steroid users” come from. It makes no sense at all but they eat it up…because the info is for “hardgainers”…and every single one of them thinks they are one.[/quote]

I suppose making an excuse is much easier than actual effort. God knows everyone wants easy these days.

I mean I’m cracking up when he is like “X must have superman genetics & god gave him a gift”. It’s like no, he has superman effort and consistency where the other people he is talking about do not. That and your goals go beyond working to achieve average.

(Not to take away from any natural ability you do have, but you know what I mean.)

50

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Professor X wrote:
countingbeans wrote:
You know, if as a society we stopped catering to the lowest common denominator so much shit like this thread wouldn’t happen.

Well this is the internet, maybe that isn’t true.

That’s hard to do with some of the authors even here have made that their primary audience. I mean, that is where ideas like “splits work best for steroid users” come from. It makes no sense at all but they eat it up…because the info is for “hardgainers”…and every single one of them thinks they are one.

I suppose making an excuse is much easier than actual effort. God knows no everyone wants easy these days.

I mean I’m cracking up when he is like “X must have superman genetics & god gave him a gift”. It’s like no, he has superman effort and consistency where the other people he is talking about do not. That and your goals go beyond working to achieve average.

(Not to take away from any natural ability you do have, but you know what I mean.)[/quote]

I know what you mean.

I don’t know anyone who has been more consistent than me over years except for some guys I know who compete. I don’t take extended time off and never have. The longest time I’ve gone without lifting either involved surgery that limited movement or was when I was in another country in a jungle. Most people can NOT say that. Most people avoid the gym if it’s raining hard…or if they have a test the next day. Even in school, I planned my workouts and studying so that I was usually in the gym the night before exams.

No, it is bullshit that this gets called “genetics”. “Genetics” didn’t force food in my mouth even when I wasn’t hungry and “genetics” didn’t lift those weights for me for over a decade.

No one was talking about my great genetics in high school.

Most people just don’t get what it really takes to make enough progress for people to not recognize you at all.

51

If nutrition and training are all that matter, and you get each of these things right 90% of the time (however you want to define “getting it right”), that means you’re only getting everything right 81% of the time. My point is that if you want to increase that to 90%, you have to get your nutrition and training right 95% of the time. That is what makes the difference. The people who make the most progress are the ones that never miss a meal, and make every workout count.