I was just doing a little researching on this. On how society treats bodybuilding and like the title says, it isn’t good. It is strange how people treats bodybuilders as if they are conceited. Ya know, people treat bodybuilders like they are a bunch of egomaniacs and arrogant meatheads who only love themselves and their bodies.

Here’s an interesting article that talks about this:

Why Do Bodybuilders Get the Cold Shoulder from Society?

Ya know something, society really does treat bodybuilding in such a negative direction. I don’t know why. People really do like to put down bodybuilders in a negative way… especially the more successful bodybuilders and the ones with the great physiques. I’m sure they go through so much negative crap from people all the time.

I remember when I first started putting up my shirtless progress pics, right away people started criticizing. I’ve gotten things like, “put a shirt on” and had a bunch of nasty trolls pick on my physique. I’ve gotten mostly positive feedback on my bodybuilding physique over the years and I continue to get positive feedback.

Some may find it weird that bodybuilders and gym rats post shirtless pics online and women post half naked photos of themselves to show off their progress but do we do this stuff for ego like they say? No. We post half naked progress pics of ourselves just so we can show off what we work so hard for. That’s what bodybuilding is for, you see.

There’s a misconception going around where people think we love our bodies so much that we gotta show the whole world and they think we’re full of ourselves. That is not why we all show off. We show off simply because we can’t tell how our bodies look so we post progress pics as a way to get feedback whether good or bad. We want people to do the judging for us. Ya know, I can’t tell how my body looks at all and when people say, “You look good”, that’s when I know I’m going somewhere in bodybuilding. You know you’re going somewhere in bodybuilding when people give you kind compliments. We do it ’cause like I said we want to show people our hard work and dedication. This should be something as being positive but for some reason society doesn’t treat this positively. Everybody wants to give us negative shit instead.

When bodybuilders have a successful physique like a ripped and buffed body, chances are they are going to get accused of using steroids. All bodybuilders pretty much get accused of that from what I’ve seen. If you go to any Fitness guru channel in youtube, you’ll see someone telling that fitness youtuber that they’re a juicehead. It’s insane, ya know? I can’t stand it. I’ve always believed that you can get a big and muscular body naturally.

Another thing I want to get off my chest is that when people want to look muscular, people mistakenly believe that we just want to look and act like tough guys. My thoughts? Hell to the freakin’ NO! A lot of bodybuilders aren’t violent people at all and they don’t act tough at all either. Many bodybuilders can be some of the nicest and down to earth people you’ll ever meet.

Some may also say that you shouldn’t call yourself a bodybuilder unless you’re in competition. That’s another big LOL for me. I call myself a bodybuilder and I am one. As long as you’re lifting weights and building muscle, you’re a bodybuilder no matter what. Doesn’t matter what level you’re at, you’re still a bodybuilder.

It’s nuts. When I first started bodybuilding and when I first started telling people around me that I was gonna get into it — right away people started criticizing, doubting me and blah blah blah… you get the deal. I’ve had people telling me in the beginning that I will never get ripped, well look at me now. Here I am… ripped and buffed and feeling really excellent! I’m loving it! People should be proud of bodybuilders and should be treating them positively. I still get critics and doubters even to this day. People want to criticize the way my physique looks, even if I eat healthy people want to criticize that too and people want to criticize the way I workout even if I know what I’m doing.

The trick is you don’t want to listen to negativity. Just continue to do your thing. Do things your way and your way only no matter what anyone says. Don’t listen to the doubters ’cause they’re just jealous, in my opinion. You are going to get jealous people after you for sure.

We bodybuilders are trying to do something positive with our lives. We want to live healthy lifestyles and that’s not an ego thing at all. Yeah we do love our bodies, no doubt but we try our best to be humble about it. I can’t tell how I look at all and if people say that I look great, that’s fine. If they say that I look horrible then that’s fine too. I’m doing this to be healthy and to please myself. I do want people to like my body, but I’m gonna let other people do the judging.

We’re not a bunch of arrogant, douchey egomaniacs and meatheads like people say. We’re just regular people trying to improve our lives positively and that’s what it’s all about. We want to inspire ourselves and hopefully inspire other people as well.

Kev

I’ve been bodybuilding for a little over 10 years now, pretty much. I haven’t gotten that much injuries. Once a long time ago, I went to the doctor ’cause I had a really bad strain and it took me out of weightlifting for several weeks. I’ll never forget that. After that, I learned that lesson and tried not to get injured again. Admittedly, I’ve had a few more minor injuries like on one of my shoulders and a few other parts but they healed pretty quickly.

There is a way to never get injured in the gym again. How? Well…

#1) Workout in good form, always – yep, this is the big one. Very important if you don’t want to get injured. One way of injury prevention is being able to workout in perfect form on every rep. If you’re lifting reps in sloppy form then you’re probably lifting too heavy and need to lower the weight some. Lift weights that you can handle. I’ve been lifting kind of heavy but at the same time, I lift weights that I can handle and can do fine without hurting myself.

#2) Always perform each rep in full range motion – No half repping. Meaning performing the rep half-way and not doing it fully. I see people in my local gym doing half repping all the time. It’s crazy. That’s just inviting for injury.

#3) Full concentration – When you’re lifting you gotta keep your full concentration in at all times. Like watching what you’re doing only and focus. Don’t pay attention to what other people are doing in the gym and don’t talk to people during your sets. In my local gym, I see people chatting with each other during their workouts all the time and that’s real bad. Amazing how a lot of people don’t pay attention, I see it all the time.

#4) Lifting way too heavy (aka lifting weights you can’t handle) – I understand that people need to lift heavy to build those gains and get more mass and all that stuff but sometimes you need to leave your ego at the door, ya know? A lot of guys in your local gyms always feel the need to lift super heavy when they don’t need to. I do lift heavy but not that heavy. I still lift weights that I can handle and lift ’til failure on the last rep. To me bodybuilding is not really about seeing how heavy you can lift. I’m not too worried about that really. I’m more worried about getting more gains and becoming the best shape of my life. If you really feel the need to lift super heavy then get a good spotter. Amazing how many guys out there lifting super heavy and they don’t use spotters at all. I see it all the time in my local gyms. Guys egos in the gyms are so huge that they don’t think accidents will happen. Crazy.

That’s about all I can think of but there are plenty of bodybuilding articles and videos about injury prevention on the internet so you can look those up.

When I go to the gym, I do lift kind of heavy but I haven’t been injuring myself at all lately which feels good. I’m not injured at all even if I been lifting heavy all summer. That’s because I always keep my focus on and workout in perfectly good form. I take every aspect of bodybuilding very seriously now even the smallest things.

My 4 day a week routine is still going good. I’ll be doing leg day tomorrow which will be my third day this week. My goal is to get bigger and there’s a saying out there that goes, “If you want to get big, you eat big” which is true. I’m going to do more research on calorie intake and all that stuff. I’ll have another blog post on this soon.

Back to injury prevention, it is pretty crucial and it’s amazing how many people in gyms don’t care. A lot of people in gyms get injured and most of them will never admit that. A serious injury can take you out of bodybuilding for a month or longer. You got to lift responsibly and take it seriously always ’cause too many people don’t.

Kev

Doing regular bench presses isn’t for everybody in the gym. Everybody is different. I’m  probably one of the very few who don’t even like bench pressing on a flat bench at all. Maybe I just think benching is just uncomfortable for me, ya know?

I prefer doing mostly dumbbell work on most of my workouts, though. I love dumbbells. Even Chris Jones here says you should do the squeezing and pushing when it comes to dumbbells. I’ve been doing both with dumbbells for a long while now — it is effective. Bench press doesn’t give as much muscle contraction, dumbbell presses and dumbbell flyes do. I’ve been doing dumbbells for chest every week now and it feels good. I’ve been getting results and feeling it. I also do cable crossovers sometimes and that’s a good workout too.

Yeah, doing both the squeezing and pushing movement for the chest is imperative if you want to get more definition.

If other people want to do regular bench pressing, that’s fine by me… it’s just not for me. Like I said, I like dumbbells more. Dumbbells are more powerful and more effective. I’m doing all I can to develop bigger pecs; it’s just gonna take some time. Who knows, maybe I already have decent pecs already. I just gotta post new progress pics and I will soon toward the end of the summer.

I’m going to do chest day at the gym tomorrow and I will do dumbbell presses, flyes and cable crossovers like usual. I’ve been lifting kind of heavy on everything too.

Kev

Yeah, fitness and bodybuilding is pretty mainstream and there’s an abundance of popular fitness channels in youtube. I know those of you who are into bodybuilding & fitness like myself want to learn new workouts and teach yourself — I’m not afraid to admit that I learn a lot of my workouts from viewing certain youtube fitness channels.

Most bodybuilding channels in youtube are a complete joke (including Scooby, I still don’t like that dude) but the best fitness/bodybuilding channels that I’ve seen are these… I’ll name a top 5 in no particular order:

The Physique of Greatness hosted by Chris Jones:

This guy is probably my favorite. I’ve been watching him for a long while. I think he’s the best at teaching correct form and all that. He goes into detail of what people do wrong. He’s also honest and humble. He seems like a good dude too. He also keeps his teachings humorous too as he is a funny guy. His videos are enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/user/PhysiquesOfGreatness

Scott Herman

I’ve been a subscriber of this dude for a long time and he gives great insight when it comes to bodybuilding. He’s also the best in teaching you workouts and I’m not afraid to say I’ve learned a lot from him over the years. I’ve learned new workouts ’cause of him really.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottHermanFitness

Buff Dudes

I’ve recently discovered these dudes and I can’t stop watching their channel. Good stuff. These guys know their shit. Well spoken dudes and they also keep their videos humorous and funny!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKf0UqBiCQI4Ol0To9V0pKQ

The Hodgetwins – Twin Muscle Channel

I’ve been a long time subscriber of the Hodgetwins. Lately they’ve been staying away from bodybuilding and fitness videos but I don’t know why. If you go through their older videos, you’ll see they have good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/user/twinmuscleworkout/videos

AthleanX 

I’ve just discovered this guy recently and he’s very good. Very insightful and detailed. This guy really gets into the science of bodybuilding than everybody I’ve seen. I’ve only watched several of his videos but gonna plan on watching a lot more.

https://www.youtube.com/user/JDCav24

There you have it. Enjoy!

Kev

A lot lately, I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my arms. A lot of people seem impressed of how big my arms are. That’s what a lot of people think. It’s a really nice feeling that people compliment on my arms ’cause that’s my whole goal is to have big arms and I guess it’s working. You see, I can’t tell if my arms are big or not. I just let other people do the judging. Whenever I go out in public, I would often get people complimenting my arms.

Some may wonder how my arms got so big. Well for starters, I only do a few workouts for arms in the gym and that’s all it pretty much takes. For biceps, I do dumbbell curls. For shoulders, I do the seated dumbbell shoulder presses and I’ve just started doing dumbbell lateral side raises which is fun. For triceps, I do the dumbbell overhead extension. Sometimes I do dumbbell skull crushers and I do the tricep push down on machine.

To get huge arms, a lot of people make the mistake of doing just dumbbell/barbell curls mostly but I disagree. To get big arms, I learned that you gotta keep your most focus on the triceps and the shoulders. Biceps are important yes and they shouldn’t be neglected at all but you must mostly concentrate on triceps and shoulders, in my opinion. That’s how I’m able to get big arms ’cause I’m figuring it out.

For dumbbell arm curls, I’ve been lifting between 25 – 30 lbs which is not all that heavy, but now that amount of weight is starting to feel light for me. Next time I do dumbbell curls, I’ll lift 35 lbs. from now on. It’s good though ’cause that means I’m getting more strength.

I love getting compliments on my arms but it’ll be nice if people compliment the rest of my body and I’m working on it. I figured out a way to get bigger chest pecs too and that’s working as well. I want to have a great look and look big. Yeah, I want to look good for people yes but at the same time I want to look intimidating. I want people to look at me and go, “Wow. You better not mess with that dude”. So far that’s working too.

How big do I want to get? As big as I can go. Maybe the size of Brock Lesnar, Hulk Hogan and Dave Bautista is what I’m kind of going for. I’m hoping to get that look when I’m 60.

The more I go to the gym 4 times a week, the more I love it more than ever now. It feels really good. I do it for myself pretty much. Working out is a lifestyle for me and I want to be healthy. I really do workout hard and workout with intensity. I also do it hoping to inspire other people too. 4 times a week routine is going great and I vow to stick with it.

Kev

Well, I guess doing chest with dumbbells mostly is the most effective way to do chest. That’s what I’m finding really. I’ve been doing this for chest for a pretty long while now. Lifting weights for chest mostly instead of push-ups. I’m really feeling it and feeling good. I’ve been lifting heavier for chest. Lifting heavy on everything: dumbbell chest presses on the floor, dumbbell incline press on bench, dumbbell flies on floor and cable crossovers. Those are the chest workouts that I do mostly.

Sometimes I try to do barbell benching on a flat bench which they call the king of workouts but I don’t do regular benching much. I prefer doing stuff with dumbbells more. I’m not worried about how heavy I could bench and find out my personal record. I don’t care about that shit really. Leave that for Olympic lifting ’cause that’s not me. My goal is to become the best shape of my life

Each time I look in the mirror every week with my shirt off, I am noticing my pecs are starting to finally shape up. I am feeling them getting bigger and bigger; they get slightly bigger each week. Each time I do chest, I start to feel sore in my chest the next few days which is good. You want to feel sore ’cause if you’re not feeling sore, you’re doing it wrong. Yep, I pretty much go by the “No pain, no gain” rule. You want to feel sore ’cause that’s how you get those “gains”.

I’m noticing I’m looking better and better and I’m planning to post progress pics pretty soon. I’ll probably wait ’til the end of the summer to do all that. I’m probably gonna end up doing that when I go on vacation to Cape Cod at the end of July. I’ll take shirtless pics of myself when I’m out at the beach which would be cool.

I’m doing all I can to get bigger chest pecs and I found something that’s working. Just gotta lift heavier and work out with intensity is all.

Kev

It’s funny. When you first get into bodybuilding and fitness, one thing you gotta watch out for are the know-it-alls out there. Yeah, like the title of the topic says they’ll be coming after ya even if you know what you’re doing. You can read all about fitness all you want to, you can watch videos on youtube and learn everything from bodybuilding.com or whatever and try to accumulate all kinds of info as much as you want… you will always get the critics and doubters. I’m just saying all this from experience.

I’ve been doing bodybuilding for 10 years or a little over. Can’t exactly remember what year I started but it has been a long while already. Throughout those years, I’ve always had know-it-alls come after me. Telling me that I’m doing bad forms in workouts, telling me that I’m doing nutrition wrong and telling me to watch where I get my info from. Blah blah blah, you get the deal. We all go through it. Even the most experienced bodybuilders get know-it-alls coming after them too. It’s crazy.

Usually the know-it-alls would start coming after you the more ripped and jacked you are. That’s when you start getting the critics, doubters and know-it-alls. When you get that stuff it probably means you’re successful at getting the body of your dreams. Why do the know-it-alls start coming after you once you know that you have a ripped and muscular body? Is it out of jealousy and ego? That’s probably a huge part of it, no doubt. You got a successful and ripped body and those haters & doubters just want to see you fail at something. That’s what I think it is, ya know?

All those experienced and more advanced bodybuilders you see in youtube… those fitness gurus… they get know it alls getting all over them all the time. Once you get a ripped and muscular body that you wanted, people will start doubting you as well. They’ll accuse you of cheating and taking steroids and all that garbage. I’ve gotten ripped pretty quickly and even I’ve been accused of taking steroids which I never did. I don’t do drugs of any kind. I got ripped pretty quickly due to lifting heavy and lifting with intensity. Yeah, I got all kinds of know-it-alls coming after me. What’s even more funny is that all those people who think they’re so smart at bodybuilding don’t even work out at all… they still give you unwanted advice anyways.

I understand that people are trying to be nice and be helpful and all but a lot of fitness people out there have huge egos, it’s crazy. One thing for sure, you gotta watch out who you take advice from.

There are gonna be people in the gym who will come around and say, “You’re doing that workout wrong, you do it this way”. Well the thing I’m noticing that everybody has their own way of doing things “right”. Doing things “right” in their own eyes. Everybody has their own style of workouts and they all do things differently. Some are gonna act like you don’t know what you’re doing when you do know what you’re doing. You just gotta listen to your body and do what’s right for you.

When you get all kinds of people talking about ya good and bad, that’s when you know you’re going somewhere in fitness. It probably means you have a great body and it’s driving people crazy. A lot of people struggle to get the look you have and that’s why I think the know-it-alls get to  you.

The question is who is the best person to take fitness advice from? I would say the best people to take advice from are people who are already in great shape. If they have a great body then they probably do know what they’re doing. If they’re not in great shape, that’s when you want to ignore them. It’s funny to me when people who are fat and flabby go around telling people they’re doing something wrong.

The fitness world is crazy as fuck for sure. Yeah, people are going to be nutty and misinformed about it. Just gotta ignore them and do your thing. There are going to be opinionated people, so don’t listen to them and stick to your guns.

I love working out. I love it more than ever now and my 4 day a week routine has been going great this summer. I’m going to keep at it too. Admittedly I do want to be ripped and have a huge body. Trying all I can to get there but gotta be patient about it. I’ll never give this up no matter what people say. Bodybuilding is in my blood. My second passion behind music.

Kev

Ya know, it’s funny. Each time I go to the gym each week, I see so many guys in the gym wasting so much time doing so many different chest workouts. They do regular benching, decline benching, incline benching and all that stuff. The thing is, I think they’re living under the delusion that you must hit each certain area of the chest. I don’t know where they get that shit from… probably from the bodybuilding books and magazines that they read. They believe that you must target the upper chest, middle chest and lower chest which to me is a bunch of bull. To me hitting every part of the chest is just a stupid myth that the bodybuilding industry has been trying to push out so they can try to sell more magazines and online subscriptions. Sad that they actually believe this stuff.

From what I’m experiencing, you don’t need to do so many chest workouts that hit every part of the chest. The reality is no matter what chest workout you do, you’re working your entire chest overall. It doesn’t matter if you do flat bench, incline bench or decline bench… either by dumbbell or barbell, you’re still working your entire chest overall. I see guys in the gym going from one workout to another when they don’t need to.

When I do chest day, all I do is go in there and do a few things. I just do the dumbbell chest press on the floor, incline press and dumbbell fly on the floor. That’s about all I need. Just doing so many different workouts is just over training, in my opinion.

When I go in the gym for each body part, I only do like 3 or 4 workouts for each body part day. That’s all I pretty much need really. I try not to spend a couple of hours in the weight room like a lot of guys do. All I need is about an hour or less.

After I do my weight workouts in the gym, next thing I do is stretching in the stretching area or 20 minutes of cardio which ever I’m in the mood for. Then I’ll be done after that.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the gym ’cause you don’t need to. Just an hour or so is good enough.

Kev

I went to the gym earlier today after I got home from the mall. Today was chest day at the gym and since I read some stuff about hypertrophy lifting, I decided to experiment with it a little today. So as soon as I entered the gym, I went to the dumbbell rack… trying to decide an amount of weight that would be the heaviest for me. So I decided to try 60 lbs. dumbbells for chest press on the floor. Welp, looks like I couldn’t lift 60 lbs. dumbbells at all even if I tried so I immediately stopped… put the 60 lbs. dumbbells back on the shelf and went 5 lbs. lower. So I tried 55 lbs. dumbbells and that was it for me; however, I only could lift 8 reps each which is perfect for hypertrophy. Remember, hypertrophy lifting needs to be around 8 – 12 reps when you can’t do the last rep… meaning “lifting to failure”. I could only do 8 reps so I lifted 8 reps for 4 sets each with a minute resting in between so that was perfect.

I did hypertrophy lifting for dumbbell flies and dumbbell incline press too. For dumbbell flies, it was 30 lbs. for me and I could only do 10 reps for each set with that one. For dumbbell incline presses, it was 40 lbs. dumbbells and I only do 12 reps. for that one which is good. So next time I do chest day next week, I’m going to do a little heavier on dumbbell flies and incline presses.

Most bodybuilders recommend hypertrophy lifting as it is the best mass building. However, you don’t want to do hypertrophy lifting all the time as it is good to mix it up. I think I’m going to do hypertrophy lifting for a pretty long while.

From what I read about sets and reps…

Light weights and high reps is for endurance

Heavier weights ’til failure between the 8 – 12 rep range is for hypertrophy

Lifting super heavy and low rep range between 1 – 5 is for strength.

That’s what I read about through various bodybuilding articles I’ve read online.

Hypertrophy lifting is the most popular though and I see a lot of guys at my local gym workout that way. Lift the last rep when they can’t do that anymore, I guess that’s why they do a lot of weight dropping.

I really would like to improve my chest greatly and I think I just found a way. I am feeling results in the chest finally ’cause I’m feeling the pecs getting bigger.

A lot of people think muscle building is a slow process which is kind of true. You can build BIG muscle quickly, as long as you work out hard, lift heavy, eat a lot. It doesn’t really take 10 or 20 years to get ripped. You can get ripped in a year or two if you do it right.

Kev

I think I know why I have been struggling to get gains on some parts. It’s because I haven’t really been doing hypertrophy lifting on some stuff. Ya know, choosing a weight where you can lift to failure between the 8 – 12 rep range. When you can’t lift the last rep, it needs to be in 8 – 12 rep range only. That’s hypertrophy lifting after reading about it some. Honestly, I have been doing that with some body parts but mostly I just lift what I can handle. If all you’re doing is lifting what you can handle for 12 straight reps, that’s not really a true lift really. The last rep needs to be anywhere from 8 – 12. I really need to do this more often.

My legs look good, my arms look good but pretty much the only thing I’m struggling on is the chest. I have figured out what was wrong. I need to lift a little heavier until I can go to failure between the 8 – 12 rep range. It needs be around there in order to get gains. I’m going to lift this way with all body parts from now on… lift hypertrophy style. I’ll always try to figure out ways to get gains on all body parts.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with lifting full 12 reps easily without struggling ’cause that also helps build muscle no matter what you think of it. If you want to get even more gains, gotta do hypertrophy. I will from this point on.

I’ve been lifting weights for 10 years or a little over now and I never thought of lifting this way. I want to have a hot and sexy body and not afraid to say that. I feel I already do and looking good now but could use more improvements, though.

If I want to look like those guys you see in wrestling and the action movies, hypertrophy lifting seems to be the way to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of you will think steroids did it to those guys but I disagree. It is possible to get that look naturally. It can be done.

Kev