Most of my adult life I have been slender and toned, which made me very appealing to some women. To give you a rough idea: I had a rather unusual vascularity. Bros call this “veins that pop out”. As a consequence, it happened on occasion that guys approached me who wanted to talk about nutrition and fitness. Or, during pillow talk, chicks would almost routinely trace my veins with their finger tips, which I thought was a bit weird. The problem of being slender, toned, and tall is that you don’t look very imposing. This used to not bother me much, considering that more chicks were interested in me than I had time to fuck anyway. My physique was the result of a consistent but moderate fitness regimen, like years of swimming, followed by years of Ashtanga yoga.
Something must have changed recently. Well, about two or three years ago I started lifting weights, but didn’t change my nutrition much. A guy on my forum suggested I simply eat a bit more if I don’t want to bulk up. I gained a few kilos of muscle mass, which changed my physique, but not in an overly dramatic way. About a year and a half ago, life happened, and I couldn’t really integrate a steady gym routine into my life anymore. Instead, I did a bit of yoga at home. Now that things have settled down, I’m back in the gym, as a reaction to a somewhat odd experience. Obviously, I had lost the few kilos of lean muscle mass I had built up previously, so I was back to being slender and toned. Yet, when I looked at myself in the mirror one day, I was terribly bothered that I looked weak. I found this interesting, because my physique wasn’t that different, yet my perception of myself suddenly was.
I am now back to lifting weights, but this time it’s for real. Of course, I have certain goals, and it’s not to get as big as possible. Amazingly enough, I am close to my old personal bests already, after not even two months. This is partly due to changes in my nutrition and supplementation, I assume. I’ll share some early lessons learnt in the follow-up post.
I am not in the least surprised. This tracks the change in your mentality towards greater machoness and aggression I’ve been noticing for some time.
Underlying this is an increase in insecurity and fear, and a resulting desire to be “strong”.
I have often noted that you and Alek Novy have become much worse people over time, with a serious deterioration in character.
No doubt this is partly a response to our deteriorating culture, but it is sad that two such intelligent and decent people could not find the inner spiritual resources to remain relatively uncorrupted.
The times drag us all down, and few can resist. It is sad. The worst parts of your character have been feveloped. Hopefully, Aaron you will one day emerge from this fear based ego phase.
Dear readers,
in case you are not familiar with the phenomenon: George is a so-called “concern troll”.
One who’s been banned on several blogs that never ban commenters. He’s got quite the accomplishments.
Uh, doesn’t aggression and such come after working out and loading up on testosterone.
George – are you really Boy George commenting?!
What? Sleazy is def not a worse person than he was in the MSF (or whatever it was called) forum days.
Hello Aaron thank you for the information you provide on your blog. You wrote: “A bit of applied mathematics, in particular statistics, is incredibly useful for a lot of jobs, and so is programming.” For a relative novice in these subjects, would you be able to recommend some books/resources with which one could perform some self study in their free time in order to gain some competency?
That’s the catch-22 of self-study: if you need to ask someone to show you the way, then maybe it’s not really for you. Also, you seem to underestimate the effort. Just “some” self-study won’t help much. Essentially, you will need to study university-level material in your spare time. In technical fields students put in 40+ hours a week, and often a lot more than that. What you need is an individual study plan. This means that you need to have a concrete goal. Afterwards, figure out what you need to learn to get there. Note that your goals may not be feasible.
Anyone getting into weightlifting, needs to know just one thing. The weightlifting advice industry is just as full of BS as the seduction/dating/self-help industries.
About 99% out there is fluff, needless over-complication etc… If you want to get into, my advice would be “find the Aaron Sleazy equivalent”. In other words, find what’s the “minimal game” equivalent for fitness. Otherwise you’re probably going to end up following the RSD or Ross Jeffries equivalent in bodybuilding.
This guy summarizes it pretty nicely. I like his videos, and from his mentor as well (kinobody).
Video above starts at 55 seconds, if you wann skip the promo stuff at the start.
Yeah kinobody is good Ive gained size and lost fat with him. Its ironic hes now collaberating with rsd now though lol. I guess he wouldnt know better though because if he took their advice he would get laid a fuck tonne because hes already jacked and wealthy.
Hey Alek, I really do appreciate your 90/10 minimal approach to getting results and not masturbating over the minute details.
When it comes to other areas of life/skills/fashion and so on, what other people/youtube channels/books do you find cut straight to the point without filler and excess baggage or complicating things.
Honestly I don’t know. Aaron Sleazy is the only author i’ve found on any subject that does this with integrity (i.e. not drowning you in filler). I don’t think I’ve found other authors covering other areas of life like this. I’m not saying they don’t exist… i just haven’t found them.
I’d say this is KinoBody btw:
https://www.youtube.com/user/gog9
Thanks for pointing that out, Aaron.
Although you call him a concern troll, i don’t think it has much to do with genuine concern about your mental health.
For some reason i strongly suspect that George has not touched many weights in his life. After all, only roidheads and empty individuals are strong to compensate. Strong men arent needed since this world is so safe and unicorns, obviously the spiritual path is the way to go. I recommend the latest revolutionary RSD product to this man, the 50th that came out already, but hey this time they have really cracked the code. Any skinny guy or fat fred can have successs in all life areas, including banging HBs. Watch out Aaron, it does not matter one percent when you became big, guys who studied game will take away all your chicks everytime.
To the slow minded: this post was mainly sarcastic. It’s a good decision Aaron, bigger is better. Not in a roidhead sense, any natural guy who puts in the work can end up looking strong with a healthy dose of intimidation. This can only be a good thing, as it leads to people respecting you subconsciously and of course this will help with the ladies as well. Damn i want to get started with lifting again.
Not that you need to justify getting “big”…or heck, just getting stronger, here’s a book if you really need to “justify” getting big.
https://www.amazon.com/Muscle-Up-Strength-Training-Everyone-ebook/dp/B016J9X06G
Sadly, people (jealousy, much?) will accuse of you low self-esteem the more you pump weight.
That’s only true if you use steroids. Natural muscle gain is so slow, that people don’t even notice the change past those initial “noobie gains”. By the time you reach peak natural muscle you’ll have lifted for 10 years.
Noobie gains are fast (so people notice the change), but that’s not so much muscle that you’ll be accused of having low self-esteem and being muscle-obssesed. You just look fitter and more toned.
Haha, I love the first comment. There are a lot of people talking rubbish when it comes to getting fit. Probably most. As some of you pointed to good sources already I want to mention one more name – Menno Henselmanns!
Anyway, the real reason I am commenting is as follows. Most blogs I read are talking about fitness, getting in shape etc. It’s great. I love it. However, how do you guys keep a sharp mind as you get older?
I recently finished my master thesis an am now working as an intern for the past four month. The first time I am working really long ours. When I finish the work day I go to the gym or straight home to watch some TV or read for a bit before hitting the sack. That’s it. If I keep this schedule for the next 40 years my mental sharpness will deteriorate faster than I can say dementia! The other day I played with mental math training tool in my browser and was shocked how slow got…
Maybe I will look at some GMAT prep sources, download a mental a math app, or get some consulting/ market sizing cases. Brain training apps like lumosity don’t seem to work that well for that purpose. http://time.com/4169123/lumosity-2-million-fine/
What do you suggest to keep a sharp mind?
I filed Menno Henselmans under “bullshitter”. I dislike that he is dramatically exaggerating his background. Further, the entire premise of his site (“Bayesian Bodybuilding”) is nonsense as his work, as far as I can gather, has absolutely nothing to do with Bayesian reasoning.
Regarding your other question (please post in the Open Thread next time):
Your best bet would be to get a job that is intellectually stimulating. If you’re in a bullshit job, which seems to be the case, then learn some proper skills in your spare time. A bit of applied mathematics, in particular statistics, is incredibly useful for a lot of jobs, and so is programming.
By the way, I don’t think it’s a good idea to do an internship after having earned a Master’s degree because you are underselling yourself. Get out of there asap and try getting a proper job instead.
I just looked at this guy’s blog… The amount of overcomplicating micromanaging of details gave me a headache.
I wouldn’t complicate lifting this much EVEN IF it did give “200% faster results” than a simpler method. The return on investment wouldn’t be worth it.
Play chess.
Learn to play an actual musical instrument, like the piano or a string instrument, e. g. violin.
For the record, I don’t believe all this bullshit about windows and car tolerances and microanalyzing timing and fancy RSD-sounding concepts make a difference.
BUT, for the sake of this thought experiment… let’s just assume all these things make a HYOOOGE difference. Let’s assume that if you spend your days overanalizing things to this detail made a 200% difference.
(For the record that means you gain 10 pounds a year, whereas a guy keeping it simple only gains 5 pounds… that’s an unheard of difference, but let’s just go with it).
Wouldn’t your brain-cells be better invested in learning how to play the guitar or learning some business skills? Like think about it
– Gain 5 pounds of muscle a year + a skill in another area of life
– Gain 10 pounds of muscle and no other skill
Opportunity cost is a very real thing. People assume you can follow 53530 micro-rules in the day and still have the same brainpower left at the end of the day. Hint, you won’t.
If you’re overcomplicating one area of your life, you literally have less mental capacity in other areas of your life. You always want to consider ROI (return on investment) and opportunity cost.
A guy who keeps nutrition simpler, has more mental power left over to work on networking, than a guy who overcomplicates nutrition and then his social life suffers.
Opposite is true. Guy who overcomplicate “Working on his social skills”, has less mental capacity left over to improve other areas of life.
Aaron I screwed up the quoting on my last comment above. Can you close the blockquote for me. Thanks?
The part where my comment begins (and quote ends is with “For the record, “)
Done.
“Play chess.”
Just wanted to comment on this quickly. I found that there’s too much of a trade-off to be made when trying to get good at chess. I say that as someone who spent a big chunk of my free time on the game (I peaked somewhere between ELO 1600-1700 a few years ago).
Yes, chess will help you keep a sharp mind but so will reading good non-fiction books that challenge your viewpoints on things or reading text books on your field of work or learning new (human or programming) languages.
So the question is: if your goal is to keep a sharp mind wouldn’t it make sense to do that with an activity that has more positive side-effects rather than an activity that has fewer positive side-effects? Concretely, is it better to spend 600 hours learning to get good at chess or to learn two new foreign languages at the same time? Or to finish 20-50 non-fiction books at the same time? Personally I came to the conclusion to stop playing chess (even though I love it and could spend whole weekends with it).
This doesn’t apply (obviously) if you try to be one of the handful of chess players int the world that can monetize your hobby.
@Lucretious Carus
Better don’t play an instrument.
I’ve played the violin from age 5 to 19.
I can’t say if there is a benefit. Probably yes, I speak 4 languages fluently, I assume that the adopted musicality helped “understanding with my ears”. Also maybe I’m better at “fine motorics” than the average person.
Problem with any instrument: you have an asymetric body position for too much time. I pay the bill today for this.
It’s not worth it.
I had Menno as a PT and he produced great results with me. Better than Berkhan which trained me a few years ago. Martin got me very lean (almost the exact Excel sheet is available on reddit). But I lost a lot of weight as well and wasn’t overly fat. Anyway, just my personal experience.
And yes you’re right. My job is BS. As is my degree. That’s why its hard to find a good job. But the degree is nothing I can change. And to be perfectly honest, I am far away from beeing a hight potential.
Another degree is no option due to my age. I work for Rocket right now. Basically a slave – but I learn a lot in terms of operations. 99% of the people are absolute assholes, though. If you think you can give me careers advice – I am serious here! – can I contact you via your consulting service?
I’ll give Menno a second look then. It’s just that I reflexively tend to dismiss people with that kind of marketing. “Looks like a duck, …”
Sure, we can set up a Q&A session. Just send me an email.
I can see George having a point. I’ve also noticed a certain change in Sleazy’s tone and writings, for the worse. Maybe he’s just doing it for entertainment value tho (it works sometimes)
Well, my main point Aaron, is simply that it isn’t at all “strange” that you are now preoccupied with brute size and are no longer satisfied with being lean and fit.
You’ve changed, so your preferred body type has too. Its quite natural. If you later move away from your manosphere phase, you’ll lose your preoccupation with brute size and once again appreciate a more balanced, refined, and intelligent look.
Its a known fact that while being strong is good, too great a preoccupation with brute strength conceals weakness and insecurity, and we see this both physically and mentally. The over-muscled tough guys on the street are pretty sad, and the tough guy internet personas similarly conceal a very insecure inner core, as we see all over the manosphere.
Of course, we live in insecure and fear inducing times so it isn’t surprising that many react to their fear by adopting a tough outer shell in order to reassure themselves and project a fearsome exterior.
Still, that kind of loss of perspective and lack of balance is regrettable when it occurs in anyone.
And seriously, Alek, why is your first instinct always to ban? You are thin skinned and intolerant, and you’re a petty good illustration of the kind of person who is preoccupied with growing big muscles. You make my point for me – try and be more imperturbable.
Peter Z – Aaron says he was doing quite well with girls, amazingly so in fact, so it isn’t about success with girls or in life. Its something else, more psychological, clearly, and about self image and persona and what he wants to project to the world, and how his increasingly fragile inner state requires a new front. And no one is saying strength isn’t good, just, that it isn’t everything.
I think NattyorNot is an interesting reading on weightlifting:
http://nattyornot.com
I like this one:
http://nattyornot.com/training-ideas-made-up-by-fake-natural-bodybuilders-that-keep-you-in-the-loop/
I replied to this comment, and it disappeared. That’s weird. Berhaps it went to the junk folder.
It was in the junk folder.