Expectations

 

Source: wordpress.com

 

It's good to have expectations, as long as they are realistic ones. You want to try and better yourself by constantly challenging yourself and breaking through plateus that you never thought you'd be able to. However, you don't want to have unrealistic expectations, and be cognizant of what is actually possible in whatever time frame or to whatever physical capability possible. There are a lot of expectations / misconceptions that people have with body transformation, so here are a few of them that I will respond to in a bulleted fashion:

• You cannot gain pounds and pounds of muscle in a short amount of time. Anybody who promises they can put 20-30 pounds of muscle on you in a month or a couple of weeks is giving you completely nonsensical information. Muscle takes a LONG time to develop. It's an extremely slow process, and you're talking something along the lines of YEARS to start to develop noticeable results. In fact, a pound of muslce in a years time is pretty impressive. That's how slow it really is.... The only exception to this is when someone goes on a steroid cycle.
• You don't "tone" in the gym. You don't "tone" with high repetitions with low weight. I think that what a lot of people confuse as tone is just more careful attention placed on their nutrition and working out that results in fat loss that in turn accentuates their muscle definition. That's more of a nutritional thing.
• You have a natural cap as to how big you can grow. Your body has a protein going around inside of it called myostatin, which places a limit on how much muscle you can grow. You have what is calleda  "genetic potential", and once you reach that, you will no longer make gains in the gym. It is a sad thing for people who are super committed to the gym and consantly work out, but it's just how things go.
• You will constantly be learning. Do not be afraid to look stupid. It may not feel right at first and people may not get it and you may not feel like you're in the groove, but it takes time and research to learn the tricks of the trade. You'll get there.

 

That's all I got for now. Check back periodically and I might update it. If you have any suggestions with anything I should add, let me know!