I’m sure many of you who’ve lifted for any amount of time have often looked at others and wondered to themselves, ‘why in the hell aren’t I getting the kind of results this or that guy is?’
I know I have; in fact, I sometimes still do.
The first reason we have to accept is genetics. Each person has different genetic capabilities to build muscle. Some people just have the good genes for it, and for others it’s more of a task.
But the most common reason by far isn’t to do with God given talent or ability, but much more to do with how the person is training. The biggest mistake those desperate to build muscle make is that they think more training, more effort, is more results; and it simply doesn’t work that way. When you hit the gym, you should train with intensity – that is, you shouldn’t have enormous rests, you shouldn’t go through the motions; you should train hard, mean it, and train to failure at the end of each exercise.
The second most common mistake is the diet. It’s astonishing but most people who train for muscle simply don’t realise that eating is 90% of the muscle gains. You could train for 100 years, and unless you ate enough to sustain your muscle development and growth, you’d not gain 1lb of muscle.
On the cynical side of things (and I know I’ve mentioned this many times before on this site), you need to be aware that bodybuilding is a sport in which many of its participants aren’t what you would consider normal people.
I’m not saying they’re Martians or mentally ill, but, they are in a sport in which admitting they use steroids is almost like admitting they don’t have the natural capacity to build the kind of muscle they have done – and that’s just the ego side of things. Let’s not forget, in many countries taking steroids or other growth substances is illegal – so admitting its usage would land them in serious trouble.