Tales from a True Insider
Today’s special post is the latest installment of the Golden Eye for the Adonis Series. Because it’s Friday and The Goal Is Frequency (TGIF) we are shining the Adonis Spotlight on one of our community members.
I’m pleased to announce a special guest post from Eric Weinbrenner. Better know by his True Insider Handle, “eweinbrenner.”
Eric Weinbrenner: True Insider and One of our Top Bloggers in the Community
The Adonis Community truly is an awesome resource to help answer the questions of those just becoming familiar with the AGR Program. Veterans of the community are more than happy to lend sound advice and support one another in their journey to “Golden.”
While browsing the community earlier this week, I happened to stumble across a Blog of Eric’s and was simply blown away by his content.
Here is a sample blog entry from eweinbrenner that has transformed into a guest post!
How to Look Awesome: Why “Average” is OK
When it comes to building muscle and getting in shape-being “average” is OK. Getting-and staying-in great shape is also a lot easier than most people believe (or would like you to believe). Before you disagree and point to the bazillion articles on the web arguing that building an awesome body is full of complicated formulas and endless hours in the gym–Let me explain.
First, we need to define a few terms, or perhaps ideas, that are essential to understanding–terms and ideas that nearly everyone in the fitness industry (fitness “gurus”, your average meat-head, and perhaps even you) tend to ignore.
The first idea that needs explanation is “building an awesome body.” There are many different ways to say this, some choose to express the idea by “building muscle” or “losing fat”, but these all really mean the same thing–trying to achieve a certain look.
What is an “awesome body”?
I would suggest that 99% of guys out there are working out, primarily, to build an awesome body. Or, at the very least, that’s why they started working out.
It would make sense, then, that people know what an awesome body looks like–considering this is their primary goal for working. Surprisingly, the idea of actually qualifying what an “awesome body” looks like is extremely difficult to nail down–but I have found it really comes down to two images of male body perfection that are presented as “ideal” in the fitness industry.
As part of my thesis during my undergrad seminar course, I evaluated a few of the sales letters for the top selling online muscle-building products. Included were products by Mike Chang, Ben Pakulski, Zach Even-Esh, and Rusty Moore.
I chose these specific products because I think it is a good representative of the fitness industry and the authors are names that most fitness-junkies will recognize.
To avoid re-hashing a 25+ page paper (and boring you to death), I will break down my findings to this precise statement: There are two forms of an “ideal” or “awesome” male body portrayed in the fitness industry. One is the roided-out, massive bodybuilder look and the other is the more lean, athletic look associated with hollywood actors.
Most guys who workout consistently tend to use one of these images as their ideal-look–whether subconsciously or consciously.
My take is that most guys do NOT want to achieve the look of the “roided” out bodybuilder, but rather would prefer the lean, athletic look (which is, of course, what is exemplified within the AGR community). Sure, there is a certain dominance that makes the idea of being “massive” and “insanely huge” appealing, but when being honest, most will agree that this is not what is attractive to women or something they truly desire to look like. Brad Howard has also provided numerous examples of data that support this idea that more muscle, or bigger muscles, isn’t equivalent with being more attractive or respected.
I go into all of this detail to define what I believe constitutes an “awesome body”, because I want you to be aware that you are likely, on some level, to be bombarded with conflicting messages about what your ideal body should look like.
This is important because I know what it feels like to constantly feel like you should have bigger muscles, weigh more, or look like a roided-out bodybuilder in order to be a “real man.” I struggled with this for years, until I finally realized that wouldn’t be my best look, or even what I want to look like. I have simply been misled by the ridiculous marketing of what I consider a dark-side of the fitness industry.
Your Best Body
I have some news for you–news that some consider unfortunate, but I would suggest is actually freeing: If your goal is to look like the huge bodybuilders that grace the covers of fitness magazines and are placed alongside internet articles of all the major online fitness sources; you need to do 1 of 2 things (or both):
1. Go back and be reborn with different parents–preferably those of John Cena or The Rock.
2. Take steroids.
Number 1 is obviously not going to happen, so that leaves the second option–steroids. I personally have never taken steroids and never plan to, so if this is something you are interested in, please go find someone who can provide information related to that.
So… the vast majority of us will never look like the guys in fitness mags…. should we just give up?
Absolutely not.
In fact, this is one of the most freeing realizations one can have, because building your best body–your version of “awesome”, is so much easier than what it takes to pump your body full of steroids and spend every waking hour in the gym.
Most of us not only don’t want to be as big and massive as bodybuilders; most of us don’t even want to be bodybuilders–we just want to feel confident when we go to the beach and take our shirts off. You don’t need to be “bodybuilder lean and muscular” to turn heads at the beach and look awesome–and achieving levels that are good enough to do so doesn’t take nearly as much work as many believe.
Dedication and consistency? Definitely. But directing one’s whole life to training and obsessing over everything you eat or dropping hundreds of dollars on supplements each month? Not even close.
Why Average is OK
So when I say crazy things like: “being average is OK”, I’m referring to “average” in terms of the fitness industry–and I’m being completely serious.
Let’s say Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his prime, is the ideal physique–the top-of-the line “awesome” that every man could aspire to; getting 80 or 85% of the way there is still awesome–and that’s all any of us will be capable of naturally and without committing every aspect of our lives to all things fitness.
eweinbrenner’s Transformation Pic
So when I say crazy things like: “being average is OK”, I’m referring to “average” in terms of the fitness industry–and I’m being completely serious.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Wow Eric! Way to raise the “Adonis Bar” for the rest of us. You touched on a lot of great points in your post. From avoiding “goal hi-jacking” to affirming the source of a man’s true sense of self-confidence when it comes to having an awesome body.
We look forward to hearing more from you in the future!
Well that’s all for now, hope you enjoyed the Adonis Spotlight.
Have a great weekend!
T.G.I.F.
your brother in Iron,
Allen Elliott | Adonis Transformation Coach
P.S. If you want hear more from Eric you can reach out to him in community here.
