Getting jacked is simple, actually.
A lot of people trying to gain muscle tend to overcomplicate the process. How many sets should I do per week? What movements are the best for chest growth? Will I finally like what I see reflected in the mirror at any point in the near future? These are the wrong questions to ask. In reality, getting jacked is surprisingly simple. Here are a few ideas to jump-start you on your path to muscular success.
Get dumped by a long-term girlfriend: As you reel from the heart-wrenching impact of having your entire life plan dissolve in front of your eyes, stare into the abyss and simply choose to go down the path of spending many hours in the gym instead of drowning your sorrows in alcohol. Now that the children you imagined having with this woman will never materialize, you can use the names you had already mentally decided on as fuel during your marathon-like training sessions. As an added bonus, you’ll hit your first plateau at exactly the same time she posts a picture of herself with her rebound boyfriend, allowing you to power through that plateau like a freight train barreling through a school bus.
Be born short: It’s not your fault, but that doesn’t stop both men and women alike from looking down on you—literally and metaphorically. The upside to never being taken seriously by your peers, always getting passed up for managerial promotion, and being considered inferior dating material is that you’ll be able to pack on pounds of muscle on those below-average length skeletal bones at a discount. Who needs height when you can have width? Don’t get too cocky, though. The reason you can do more pull-ups that every one else is because of better leverage, not because you’ve suddenly managed to accumulate enough muscle to make up for your genetic deficiencies.
Be fat: You’re actually starting out ahead of everyone else because you’ve been carrying the weight of an adult sea lion on your frame for the past decade or two. As a result, you have calves that a professional body builder would never achieve without injecting enough steroids to kill a humpback whale. The only problem is that all that muscle is covered by the disgusting lard you wish you shave off yourself with a fillet knife. All you have to do is convert the self-hatred that’s currently pushing you to shovel mouthfuls of food down your gullet into fueling you to shovel sets upon sets into your gym log. The stretch marks and loose skin are a problem, but you still have that fillet knife.
Be bullied: All the other kids with the [healthy social dynamics] better run, better run because you’re going to post the most absurd post-workout selfie on social media about seven years after graduation. Your frame will have doubled in size, making you nearly unrecognizable, but it’s still posted under the same name the children deemed stupid enough to start making fun of in elementary school. You wished you could do something to make them hurt as they kept calling you the same nickname all the way through the end of high school, and now you can; by posting this picture and showing them all. Right? Right?! Why isn’t anyone commenting? Are you all too busy with careers and families to go on social media anymore?
Have a midlife crisis: The bad thing about not having lifted for the entirety of the healthy years of your youth is that you can now make up for it by achieving about 60% of the physique you could’ve had if you only made entirely different choices. Fundamentally questioning who you are as a person and undermining your own self-narrative is tough, but suicidal motorcycles are expensive while gym memberships only cost you your self-esteem. Joke’s on the gym sales guy; you lost your self-esteem somewhere between college graduation and the moment you realized you’ll leave nothing behind after you die. Just remember to warm up those shoulder joints after you inevitably injure your rotator cuff two weeks into training.
There! With these helpful tips, even you can chase the unobtainable feeling of loving yourself. Just remember that getting jacked is simple, not easy.
Victim of the Male Loneliness Crisis: your buddy got a girlfriend and you’re happy for him, but now what are you supposed to do on weeknights? Nothing good is on Netflix and scrolling through your Steam library gets old quick. Maybe going to the gym two hours a day, four days a week will fill the void. “Hey, let’s go Wolves!” you say to the front desk guy. That counts as human contact. “Never skip chest day!” to the other bro benching on the same day as you. Two personal interactions today? Killing it. You might not be making progress on the friendship front, but you are getting huge. And that means you’ll be ready for friendship, whenever it comes.
OR you can be a perimenopausal mom of teenagers and find that the only thing that makes you feel like you got this is pressing more than the guy watching you like he knows better :)