“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

Socrates

This post is intended for Beginners.

Summary: TRP has been full recently with lots of great (and not so great) fitness posts. One of the core tenets of our philosphy is LIFTING. Every man must lift. Every man must push his body to become the strongest and most powerful it can be.

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you just how much of a difference lifting will make to your life. You've heard it all before, you've seen the progress pics and read the stories. Lifting will make you more confident, lifting will make you taller, the attention you get from girls will literally baffle you. Once you've had a taste at what good health and fitness can offer you, what completely owning and mastering every part of your body feels like, you'll never want to go back. In fact you will be SO ANGRY with yourself for not having started sooner. If you want to be a successful man, you must succeed in mastering your body.

You must lift. We all know this. If it wasn't so great we wouldn't be pushing you to do it so hard.

So to all you newbies out there. Why haven't you started yet? Why are you reading yet another lifting post?

Stop reading, start lifting

Yes I know there are plenty of you who have sat here and read the sidebar and subscribed to gainit and bought a gym membership and new fucking gym clothes, but still haven't stepped foot in the temple of iron.

We always get a boost in subscribers after the yearly "the red pill will kill you inside" post, and I guarantee that for many of them it will click. And they will read and will read and their mind will be blown and everything will fall into place. That's what woman are like. Oh, so that's why the ex did that. This totally explains this one time. I'm a piece of shit. Women are all horrible. I'm a fat tub of lard who hasn't made anything of his life. I need to LIFT.

And so the fat tub of lard finds a fitness subreddit or looks up a few things online. One guy says he should do SS, another recommends SL5X5, while yet another swears by 5/3/1. Some say he should do 3 days a week, some 5, some say start with accessory exercises, some say wait at least a year. Alan Thrall says to squat like this, but some guy with the best progress pics I've ever seen says he did it this way. What variation of row should I be doing? What if everyone laughs at me at the gym?

The frustrated yet motivated newbie keeps reading and planning and making timetables and schemes and custom-programs that he forgets to do the actual thing that matters. Start.

I've made a meal and exercise plan!

This is the basis of analysis paralysis. We all get it, and it's not exclusive to lifting. It's a form of procrastination that you've probably used when planning out your revision timetable and never actually followed through with it. It's the massive amount of data and differing opinions from multiple sources that can confuse and trap a beginner into thinking the activity is much more complex and inaccessible than it actually is.

All of you newbies have probably been super motivated to start lifting, and there have been multiple posts on the front page recently pointing you in different directions. You probably have a host of personal factors that you are using to excuse away your procrastination (There's no gym near me, I can't afford it, I don't think I'm strong enough yet).

Stop fucking about and get to the gym. Find a program, stick to it for 3+ months, and don't falter. Don't switch programs, don't add random extra exercises or switching out lifts. Don't mess around with your training days. Don't make excuses to skip training.

Discipline > Motivation

Your muscle will be built with discipline and consistency. Motivation can get the ball rolling but it won't hold you up forever. You will have to lift on days you have no motivation. You will have to lift on days where lifting is the thing you want to do least in the world. You will learn to hate specific exercises and you will do them anyway. Only the men disciplined enough to grit their teeth through the pain when motivation has long abandoned them are the ones who you see on top of the world.

So start lifting. Find one good program, stick to it. Honestly, it doesn't really fucking matter about the specifics. If you are lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again you will see progress. If you are fuelling your body properly and giving it all the parts it needs to build more of you, you will see progress. It doesn't matter if it's 3 x 5 or 5 x 5, if doesn't matter if you squat 2 or 3 times a week. It doesn't matter if you run on rest days or if you don't. As long as you are lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again, you will get stronger. And you sure as hell are doing a better job with your time than just sitting there thinking about how you're going to lift.

Find one good source for form and follow it. I used the Alan Thrall videos. Go to the gym and make a dick of yourself for the first few weeks. Be embarrassed and self conscious all you want, you'll soon learn no one gives a shit anyway. Start with just the bar and perfect your form, swallow your pride, lower your voice and ask the dudebros to teach you how to deadlift properly. Side eye the guy OHPing double your body weight and note how he does it. Save up some fucking money and pay for a one hour personal training session to check your form when the weight actually starts getting real. And it will get real. If you do this properly, your noob gains will amaze you.

Except...

But to be honest, none of this actually matters, it won't, because I can guarantee you, your diet is shit. You can work out all you want but if you keep eating the shit you are now you will see slow progress and be sore and tired all the fucking time. Diet is 80%, abs are built in the kitchen, bla bla bla. We say all this becuase IT'S TRUE. Don't even think about stepping foot in a gym until you are certain you can actually fuel your body first.

You need to learn to cook. And you must fucking avoid analysis paralysis with your cuisine too. Stop looking up recipes and fitness meals, stop trying to get too fancy and stop worrying about it too hard. All you need to do is learn to feed yourself properly, the fancy stuff can come later. Find a simple recipe and try it out. Fuck it up, try it again and get it right. Learn to cook chilli. Fuck it up a few times. Fuck it up less times. Get good at chilli. Move onto your next dish (mine was bolognese), fuck it up but eat it anyway because protein. Get 3 or 4 staple meals under your belt that you can cook with your eyes closed. Get good at making breakfast and eating leftovers. Learn to hate your staple meals but eat them anyway because you need the gains. Cook your master chilli for all your friends and get laid because you've demonstrated some fucking value by having actual attractive hobbies and skills.

Learn to eat breakfast. You need to pile in as many fucking calories as possible at the beginning of the day. I'm not going to tell you what your bulking breakfast should be like. Experiment with different shit until you find one that you can eat 5 days a week no problem. Mine consists of pitta bread, butter, a fuck tonne of scrambled eggs, ham, spring onions cucumber and tomatoes, a fucktonne of pastries and yogurt, wheatabix, jam, fruit, chocolate, juice, water and a protein shake. You can get 1600-1800 calories in one fucking meal and you will get so good at eating it it will feel like nothing to you. It is possible.

On weekends I make myself a fry up. Heart attack on a plate.

Only a child relies on others to be fed

Learning to cook is one of the most important things you can do as a human being. Not being able to chop up some veg and feed yourself is fucking atrocious, and it pains me to see how pathetic my peers are when it comes to their diets.

I do not believe it is possible to succeed at lifting if you do not have control of your diet. I do not believe you can have control of your diet without knowing how to cook for yourself. I do not think you can call yourself a functioning human being if you cannot cook an edible meal from scratch. We as humans have had to have had this skill for centuries, in fact our ancestors had to grow the crops and raise and butcher the meat themselves,. Count yourself lucky you can buy fresh produce and slabs of good meat at the supermarket, you are living in a time of abundance and prosperity. Learn to cook.

Now fucking go.

So you've read your wall of text Mr AFC. Congrats. You're still in the midst of analysis paralysis. You haven't got up yet to go to the gym. You're waiting to be told what to do. And in fact, it's probably not a bad idea for someone to actually tell you what to do. The most important thing really is to get you started, it doesn't matter how. Only once you've struggled through the first few months will you start picking it up and soon you will get the hang. You will enjoy cooking, you will look forward to hitting the gym every fucking day, you will get your 8 hours sleep each night religiously. But in order to achieve all that, you need to fucking get started don't you. Here, I'll give you the first few steps:

Diet:

  • Find your TDEE. There are calculators online.
  • If you are a fat tub of lard, your new goal is to eat 500 calories less than your TDEE. If you are skinny shit, eat 500 more.
  • Download the myfitnesspall app on the smartphone I know you have.
  • Log everything.
  • Log EVERYTHING.
  • You will religiously log everything until you start remembering the calories of the foods you eat the most off by heart. Do not falter. Do not skip days.
  • As a skinny shit you will be amazed by just how small your daily caloric number is. You'll think "but I ate so much"! No. You ate like a child. You will soon start realising just how much food you need to eat in order to get swole.
  • As a fat tub of lard you will be shocked when you realise just how much full of shit your diet has been. And how much you fucking eat. The very act of having to keep logging your food into the app will remind you that you are eating too fucking much.
  • You will falter. Some days you will hit your targets, some days you will miss them completely. Do not beat yourself up about it. DO NOT give up just because you fucked up a few days. We've all done it, in fact we all still do it. Every time you have a shitty food day, reset the next day and get back on the fucking horse.

Find a recipe online and perfect it. Then do another.

Lifting

  • Stronglifts 5X5

  • Follow the program religiously.

  • Lift 3 times a week with rest days in between

  • Use youtube videos or subreddits to learn form

  • You won't know what you're doing the first few times and will look stupid

  • It's natural. You'll get over it.

  • Your form will be bad the first few weeks, that's why you MUST start with light weight. Just the bar. Don't try to be a big man and load up weight on the bar the first few times so you don't look pathetic in front of the guys who have been doing it for years. Those guys will judge you more for biting off more than you can chew than they will seeing your skinny ass actually start with a safe, light weight. Everyone at the gym either started out too thin or too fat, they've all been there.

  • Once you start getting the hang of it, develop some frame and ask the bigger guys around you to critique your form (if they look open to it, like if you're sharing a rack, don't just bother random dudes).

  • You will soon develop mad respect for these guys when you realise just how much work and discipline they put into achieving their bodies. Hollywood makes getting swole look easy. No, it will take you years and years of pain and sweat and you will still not feel big enough. No one accidentally Arnolds.

  • Once the weight on the bar starts getting heavy, pay for a personal trainer to check your form. Don't let them try and make you a program or give you exercises. Be firm, "I want to do these exercises safely, can you show me the proper way."

  • Don't tell anyone you've started lifting. Don't brag to friends and family. You will notice when they notice. Telling people of your self improvement plans actually releases the same dopamine rush to your brain as if actually having fulfilled those plans. It makes you less likely to actually do it.

  • Even though we tell you not to skip days, you will skip days. In fact you may skip weeks or months. Every time you fall off the horse, you must get back on again. Every single time. A man is made through the pain of failure and defeat. You will hate yourself every time you skip the gym, use that anger to fuel your next workout

  • Fat tubs of lard. Run on your rest days. In fact you should all do it. Running occasionally won't fuck your gains, and having healthy lungs and good stamina is fucking important. Run for 20 mins, next time run for 25, then 30. Or, run for 20 mins at 9.5kph on the tread, then next time at 10. Whatever you do, just run, and make sure your run is harder every single time. Swimming is just as good. The more you run the more you'll start enjoying it, the more you enjoy it the more invested you'll get in finding good running programs and aims.

  • Skinny shits. Fix your posture. Be always fucking aware of it. There is no quick hack to this, the more you lift, and the more you consciously correct your posture every time you catch yourself slouching, the better your back will get, the more confident you'll feel, and you may even grow an inch or two. I definitely did.

  • Yes you can curl on your rest days. We all want big arms quick. We don't blame you for it. Run for 20 mins then do some curls and chin ups. Those will get you the biceps the ladies want. Just don't tire yourself the fuck out, your main compound lifts (SL5X5) are more important. They must always take priority. If you find you can't lift because you're not getting enough rest on rest days, then stop running and curling and actually rest.

  • I started incorporating a short bodyweight/plank routine in my rest days after my runs. I would run, plank and curl. The running was to clean out my smokers lungs, the planks for the 6 pack abs, and the curls for the biceps. You don't need to actually do this, what I'm getting at is that you should keep your Stronglift days consistent, do all of your "you" stuff, in the spaces between. Any specific area you want to work on, do it in your off days, but don't hit it too hard and always remember that your compound lifts come first.

  • Use your squat and your chin up to gauge your pogress. I found that at my peak I was able to add one extra chin up to my record every single time I hit the gym. Try and make that your aim, or something similar.

  • You need objective goals. Find a REALISTIC weight aim and set a date you want to achieve that weight by. Mine is 80kg by December 2016. Your main lifts should have goals too. My first objectives were: Squat 1 x My Bodyweight, Bench 1 x My Bodyweight, Deadlift 1.5 x My Bodyweight. If you are a beginner, those should be yours too.

  • DO NOT OVERWORK YOURSELF. 5 days a week is enough, 3 lifting, 2 lighter exercises. Give yourself at least 2 days a week where you do absolutely no exercises bar stretching out your aching muscles. They need the rest, and so will you.

  • 8 HOURS SLEEP MINIMUM No exceptions. Cut down on your time jacking off and scrolling reddit and use that time instead to sleep. Every moment you are awake wasting time in the evening you should be chanting "I could be using this time to build muscle, and I'm not. I will never again complain about slow progress, for it is all my fault.". Muscle only builds while you sleep.Give your body some incubation time. Your bedtime is earlier now. Don't complain. You made this decision when you decided you didn't want to be an unattractive piece of shit anymore. Skip the late night DOTA stream and get some fucking shuteye. 10PM-6AM is my ritual. Big breakfast then straight to gym. Eating and sleeping are the two things you will do the most in your life, in fact, EVERY DAY, for the rest of your life. You'd be stupid not to get good at them.

There we go, I've given you diet instructions, I've given you eating tips.. I've given you a training program, I've told you what you can and can't do. I've given you specific goals and aims. I've explained accessories and when you should do them. Now start. Most of you will fail and give up. Start again when you do that. It doesn't matter how many times you've started from scratch, do it again. I can't even count how often I've had to swallow my pride and put just the bar back on my shoulders. Those of you who make it through and stay consistent the next 3 months, you will quickly learn to take your own route. You will stop following my advice and start your own training, some of you will thank me for finally getting you started, some of you will call me an idiot who didn't know what he was talking about and gave bad advice. That may or may not be true, but it won't matter, because I got you to start lifting regardless. That's all the aim is here.

If you're a beginner and still don't know where to start, get off your ass and go embarrass yourself a few times until you know how to lift. If you REALLY don't know where to get started, follow my program, your hand can be held for the first few months; after that you'll learn enough to go it out on your own. Lifting will change your life. Having the strength and power to look like an actual masculine male will do wonders for you frame and will change your outlook guaranteed. You might not believe us now, but it's likely you just don't understand through lack of experience. When you get straight up approached by a girl for the first time in your life, or a big ass motherfucker gets out of your way when walking down the street. That's when you'll understand.

Lessons Learned:

  • Planning and analysing will result in you never starting
  • Lifting is super fucking simple and not the complex art you think it is
  • You cannot call yourself a functioning human being if you cant feed yourself properly
  • It doesn't matter HOW you start, as long as you do

TL:DR: Stop reading posts about lifting and actually go do it