Author Stephen King once said, “If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”
I feel the same way about bodybuilding. If you get your ass up earlier than you have to in the
morning, hump your way down to the gym, get on the floor and give 100% day after day, I consider you a bodybuilder. I don’t care if you are morbidly obese. If you are out there putting in that work then I have respect for you. The results will come, but as long as you do the work, you are, in my book, a bodybuilder.
I truly feel that a lot of guys are afraid of day one or even the first few months because they are out of shape. Lacing up your shoes, getting out on the floor and seeing people who are so much further along in their journey is intimidating. This is why I always tell more advanced Team WB members that they shouldn’t put down fatties who are putting in that consistent work. Be a source of inspiration or even help. As long as they are doing the work they are on the same journey as we are and we don’t compete against each other, only against ourselves.
The positive side to King’s quote is truly motivational. It shows how we are all working together. If you are a starving short story writer or Stephen King you are both writers. If you
The Rock doesn’t spend a lot of time having to convince himself and others he puts in the work….he just puts in the work
are single digit body fat at over 200 pounds or if you are so fat you are out of breath when you eat you are body bodybuilders. However, there is an unspoken negative side of this. If you aren’t putting in the work, you are NOT a bodybuilder, if the work is inconsistent or half assed you are not a bodybuilder. I do not care if you are 6 foot, 190 pounds and have 3% body fat – if you don’t put in the work I have no interest in you. I would give a dozen guys like that for one out of shape guy who shows up every day and gives it his all.
Team WB does not only focus on the body, the mental aspect is just as important. Just picking something up and putting it down will not get you the results you want. You need to be focused, you need the lifts to work together and you need to have the right mindset.
You are not who you think you are.
Many people have a very wide gulf between their internal and external selves. People will sit on the sofa and imagine themselves in all sorts of ways. In the end, the person you think you are inside, the person you feel you truly are…that person isn’t anything unless you marry it to
Daydream Believers…number of gains: 0
actions in the world. All you are is what you do and everything else is daydreaming. You think you are a really smart person despite consistent failure in intellectual pursuits? Guess what, you aren’t smart. You think you are a hard worker despite not putting that work in. Guess what, you’re lazy. The only thing that defines you are your actions and your thoughts about who you “really” are mean absolutely nothing and serve only one point…to guide your actions.
There are exactly zero valid excuses for you to not put actions into this world consistent with the person you think you are or want to be. You are and always will be defined by what you do. When you do something you should ask yourself if it is an action that the kind of person you feel you are would do. I see it in the fitness world all the time. Out of shape trainers giving advice on fitness and diet. They have a certificate after all so they must be qualified. I am sure in their heads they are experts. But in the end they are just fat fucks and their body shows it.
While a lot of this is just lazy escapism, there is also a psychological basis for some of it. One neurotic defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory is called Reaction Formation. Reaction formation is when a subject deals with impulses and emotions that produce hyper-anxious states or are in some way seen as absolutely unacceptable by exaggerating the direct opposite.
In the process of reaction formation the original, rejected impulse is not replaced by the new, exaggerated opposite impulse but is subsumed into the unconscious in its infantile form. So in a situation where, say, love replaces hate the hate doesn’t vanish. The original and aggressive feelings linger under the hyper affectionate exterior that masks the original impulse from the subject’s awareness.
Examples of reaction formation can be when an alcoholic or a drug addict extols the virtue of their bad habits with exaggerated claims of how they are actually good for them or broaden their horizons or add to their creativity or even have some health benefits while
Do not sublimate aggression in infantile form under an exaggerated opposite — pussy
repressing the actual negative influence on both their body, soul and mind as well as their social standing and character. Another common instantiation of this neurotic defense mechanism is an exaggerated insistence that Long Island is the greatest place on earth complete with praise of everyone and everything originating from there and the memorization of huge amounts of trivial information pertaining to it. This exaggerated attachment helps the subject delude himself into thinking Long Island is not a ridiculously lame place that outsiders find unbearable and helps them cope with having to be from there.
We see this in fitness a lot with the “I will start next week” crowd. As a justification for sloth like behavior in activity and food consumption, people convince themselves that next week they will “really get serious about this” and as such this is just a fun little treat to enjoy prior to getting serious. The sublimation of the shame from ones behavior is possible because of the exaggerated insistence of the opposite.
So remember team, who you think you are, the kind of person you think you are only has meaning if you act in a way that brings it into reality. Otherwise, you are just daydreaming. We are now 89 days away from the official start to the WB Fitness on season. I tried lifting some weights yesterday and felt like shit. I am still sore and just can’t force my body to do anything yet, but I will. I am in a rest phase and having to remind myself constantly that even pro athletes take an off-season every year. However, 89 days from now we start a new season. It will be mid-February. It will be painfully cold. It will be time to wake up at 3:30 am again. Time to put everything out there again. Time to kill it and kill it hard and no amount of thinking about it will replace getting your ass out there in the cold and acting on it.
Team WB Fitness isn’t just #teamnoexcuses but we are also #teamaction. Day dreaming is not our thing. We make a plan, prepare our body and mind for execution, get ready for action and then do that work.
Grind On!