5 life lessons from 3 years in the gym

I've been working out consistently for ~3 years (2021-2024), and I've built a good physique naturally.

Success leaves tracks, experience in this domain gives lessons that can be applied elsewhere.  That is what this blog post is covering.

Life lessons from the gym:

Everything must be hard before it is easy

When I first stepped into the gym as a high-schooler I was embarrassed. I thought everyone was looking at me. I was one of the youngest there, I was weak, and I didn't know what exercises to do nor how to do them.

It was hard, and at that time I wished it wasn't.

Now, I don't care whatsoever what others in the gym think of me. I'm probably the guy making younger me nervous.

This applies to every exercise as well.

The first time you bench press it's always a shit show. 90% of the strength gains as a beginner are your nervous system learning.

Until you've got 1000 reps of bench under your belt it's as if your body doesn't know how to bench.

Every exercise is hard at first: your stabilizer muscles have never been stressed in this way, the correct form feels weird, and you may have mobility restrictions.

If you've ever stuck to a pursuit for a long time, in retrospect you'll observe a period in the beginning of suffering. After you stick through the difficult period at the start, it gets much easier.

You gain experience, knowledge, and proficiency.

It's as if any domain you pursue has an acquired taste.

When you're a beginner in any domain, remember it must be hard before it's easy. Pay down your ignorance debt as fast as possible. Think of the long-term play, not the short-term emotion.

The wish for it to be easy when you're a beginner is asinine. How can a beginner expect to be as good as somebody who's done it for any significant amount of time? How could I wish for working out to be easy when I hadn't even done a single rep?

Advanced people do the basics every time

The primary characteristic of somebody who is advanced in an area is they are consistent and diligent in performing the basics.

In bodybuilding, the 3 main pillars (basics) are: Training, Nutrition, and Recovery.

The advanced bodybuilder would train optimally every session, eat in a calorie surplus or deficit, eat enough protein, and sleep well consistently.

The basics account for 99% of the results and the things he adds on such as red light therapy, sauna, cold plunge, etc... are supplementary and represent a marginal improvement.

Basics are principles that transcend the level of performance you compete at. The #1 fighter in the world does the same basics that work for the first-timer. The advanced techniques are niche and nuanced.

The basics apply broadly, the advanced apply narrowly.

It's much better to have a rock-solid foundation of the basics rather than a scaffolding of memorizing the advanced. A piano player knowing all the notes of a top-level song will sound like shit if he can't keep rhythm, one of the basics.

Knowing calculus doesn't help you today, but arithmetic is practical.

Richard Feynman is one of the most advanced in physics and math ever. He has a book in which he articulates a complete logical chain starting from counting your fingers all the way to calculus in 4 pages. His foundation of understanding the basics is fully complete.

If you wish to build a skyscraper you need a robust foundation.

If you wish to become advanced, master the basics.

Progress outpaces perception

When I started lifting I thought (correctly) my physique was that of some skinny kid.

Something interesting is that identity lingered for longer than it was true. I always thought of myself that way, then one day I was looking at myself in the mirror and thought “damn my physique is pretty good actually”.

Objectively my progress was gradual and consistent, but the change in self-perception was stark.

The lesson is the progress you've made exists, but you don't perceive it until it's overwhelmingly obvious.

The progress is constant, but the updates your perception aren’t. Don't overly trust where you think you're at. The human threat-seeking brain will lie.

Deliberately update your self-perception.

The real asset that's being built is you, not the external metric. It's hard to see the value of this asset going up, especially if the external metrics are stagnant or falling.

The person you are forced to become when building a good physique is the real value.

It's not about climbing the mountain, it's more about your lungs being able to breathe when you're at the top.

What you do is less important than showing up

It almost does not matter what you do in the gym, as long as you're there.

Something I see in many beginners is they look for the perfect workout split and as a result of trying to optimize everything to 100% they go for a week and then quit.

If you did the worst workout split possible consistently for 1 year, you'd make 10x more progress than somebody who did the best split for a month.

When you're a beginner in any pursuit, start with your shit show of a routine. It's inevitable that your shitty routine will be iterated upon as long as you remain consistent.

The impressive part about working out is not the intensity of the workout, but the commitment to doing it for 20 straight years.

People procrastinate starting an activity with pseudo-preparation. The activity is primary and the education/preparation is supplementary.

The problem here is they're sharpening the axe all day, and doing little to no chopping.

The best case is having the correct ratio of sharpening to chopping, but in the beginning violence is the answer. If you're trying to learn how to fell trees you need to get some trees under your belt.

Don't mistake the problem as a lack of knowledge when it's actually a lack of experience.

The weight doesn't care who you are

When you walk up to the barbell it doesn't matter how you feel, where you're born, your race, background, or hardships. The only thing that matters is if you can lift it or not it's a binary, yes or no.

In this way lifting mimics life. People don't care about your past hardships, they care about what you can do and what you've done.

The external metrics like money, or winning a competition are objective. It doesn't matter if you're genuinely a victim of circumstance, you will be judged either way. You win or lose, you have the money or don't.

There are no participation trophies for trying to lift 500 lbs.