Masculine Weight Training

You need to think seriously about masculine weight training if you care about the quality of your life.

No other workout will give you what you are looking for.

And if you do not work out at all, you will not reap any of the benefits to a masculine appearance, strength, muscles and being a tough guy who can do most everything for himself and not have to be worried about getting messed with.

You need to be strong, muscular and masculine to live a good, healthy life where you can do most things for yourself.  You cannot live well if you are hurting or so weak that you need help to do the simplest tasks.

Being big, powerful and muscular is not so much about how you look.  It is how you feel.  You want to feel strong, healthy and able to do all the weight training you want and get involved in whatever adventurous activities that thrill you the most.

Of course, you will look better. Big muscles make you look fantastic with your shirt on or off.

It feels good to have cute girls be impressed with your body.  It also feels good to pick a girl up off the ground when you are getting to know her.

Benefits of masculine weight training

Physical work will only get you so far in developing your strength.  So will sports.  Usually after you get good at the work or sport, you will make no real gains in strength.  In fact, once you get really good at either, your strength will decrease because you know all the shortcuts and tricks.

You will need to use weight training methods to increase your strength and even to keep what strength you have.

Masculine defined -

having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men, especially strength and aggressiveness.

Weight training will create the strength.  Progressively lifting heavier weights is the simplest and best way to get stronger.

With the aggressiveness part, this means doing things your way.  Aggressively living your life in a manner that suits you.

So take it a step farther and define aggressive weight train as training in a way that suits you.  Not you trying to be a fitness model, ripped and with 6 pack abs.  Not as a coach wants you to be to excel in a sport you have no interest in.  Not someone else designing your program.

You.  Always you.

Most programs and workouts are designed by someone else to tell you what to do to fit into their idea of what you should look like or to improve your performance at their sport.

With masculine weight training you concentrate your effort on the types of workout that provides you the most benefits for your life.

And strength is life.

Masculine men don't worry about what someone else says they should do or developing a certain look or certain size.

You design your masculine weight training workouts around what makes the most sense to you.

Of course there are general guidelines that make sense to everyone:

  • Train with multi-muscle lifts if you can without injuring yourself or exacerbating an existing injury.  Squats, deadlifts, overhead presses and bench presses.
  • Use mostly barbells rather than machines to help avoid injury.
  • Be careful on the volume.  High reps, lots of sets and minimal rest days tend to run you down and get you injured.
  • Don't go too heavy on dumbbell exercises as it is easier to hurt yourself.
  • Train opposing body parts.  Biceps and triceps.  Chest and back.
  • Eat enough decent quality meat and other food that you can recover from your workouts and feel good enough to train.
  • Don't get overly fat trying to get as strong as possible as quickly as possible.
  • Workout intensely.  This means where that last rep is difficult to get.
  • Avoid injury.  If you feel like you are going to get injured...stop.

But you do not feel the need to develop the perfect proportions to fit some arbitrary David-like model.   Trying to fit your body into someone else's perfect size makes absolutely no sense.

I do get the envy in this.  I see the massive muscles on extremely well-built men.  Muscled-up upper bodies tapering down to a small waist.  Ripped thighs.  Six-pack abs.

Yes, those men do look great.

If you can look this good with masculine weight training...go for it. But for most of us, this is not a realistic goal to work toward.

But, there are not that many of those types of men.  Some have the genetics.  Most have used the drugs.  Their lives certainly revolve around training in a way to develop that look.

But do you want to go to that level?  Spending thousands on various steroids?  Going to the gym nearly every day and sometimes twice a day.  Measuring your food?  Training while injured?  Where do you get the money for steroids if you have to pay your normal bills?  How can you get to the gym so often and have enough time to work a demanding job and do all the other things that life demands?  How can you stay motivated to train at that level while you are suffering with injuries?

Is all that extra effort and sacrifice worth it?

For most of us...no.

Most of us understand the demands of life will not allow us to be near professional bodybuilders or fitness models.

But you can still train.  That's why I call it masculine weight training.  It is you, deciding for yourself how much time and energy you can devote to training.  It is you designing a masculine weight training program that you can probably follow most of the time.  It is you deciding that today is not a good day to train for whatever reason.

You, you, you.

You have genetics and a life you have lived.  You will fit into your size and shape.  Your muscles will grow and expand as you get stronger.

Just lift hard at the basic lifts and do the lifts you enjoy without injuring yourself.

Being healthy, reasonably fit and strong as hell with the muscle that goes with it is a huge part of being masculine.

Isn't it?

You should be big and strong and muscular.  It certainly helps you avoid trouble.  No one wants to mess with a guy who looks like he could snap a neck like nothing.

With a big, wide, thick back that can absorb the force of a chair being smashed across it.  Or some punk kicking you in the back.

When you're strong you can just do for yourself.  Instead of hiring real men to do real work, you are a real man who can do real work.

With masculine weight training you don't worry about being perfectly proportioned or developing the Adonis body or getting super ripped with 6 pack abs.

Those things make no real sense to the average guy.

The average guy should just work on getting as strong as he can and developing whatever muscles that go with it.

Instead of worrying about how big certain muscles are, you just work on getting stronger.

From Starting Strength -

The Skinny Fat Lifter

Favorite quote -

You must realize this important fact: the appearance of a relatively larger upper body and a relatively smaller waist provides this aesthetic improvement far more effectively than visible abs. If you're training for aesthetics, paying attention to upper body mass is the most practical approach, and the one that returns results the fastest. 

Less Volume for Masculine Weight Training

Try masculine weight training with less volume.  Especially as you get older.  Whenever I try to add in a bit more volume, I suffer.  I take much longer to recover for the next workout.  I re-injure my old injuries.  I get very sore.  And I don't even enjoy my workouts.

The problem with high reps is that at the start of the set, the beginning reps are easy.  Until you start to get fatigued and they become very hard.  When you are fatigued, you are most susceptible for injury.  Always.

The problem with extra sets is it takes a long time to recover between sets.  More time in the gym.  Less time to rest at home.

The problem with multiple workout days a week is it takes an enormous amount of time in the gym, preparing for the gym, getting there and back and then recovering from your workouts.  You have precious little free time left and this leaves you very susceptible to injury and illness.

When to Lift for Masculine Weight Training

Late afternoon or early evening is best if you work a normal day job or go to school during the day.

You don't want to be tired for you main thing, work or school because heavy masculine weight training does not give you an energy boost.

Weight training tears you down in the short run.  You will be exhausted, tired, beat, sore and barely able to function after a good weight training session.

You won't feel great until you get a full nights sleep.  Or after a few good nights sleep and some big steaks.

Lifting early in the morning, before a full time job, is a huge mistake if you want to do well at that job.

This is one of the main reason professional bodybuilders and fitness models will always be better and look better.  Working on developing their bodies is their job.  They workout during the day.  They have no demanding job that they need to work 8 to 12 hours a day on.

How often should you train?

You should train often enough that you don't get excessively sore from your workouts if you go up in weight a bit or add a rep or set.

For example if you need to skip a month of training and jump back in at the same weight, same sets, same reps as the last workout and you find yourself with extreme soreness the next day, where you can hardly get dressed and you feel terrible, that was too long between workouts.

At my age, injury history, work schedule and energy level, I'm good at 2 days a week. Or maybe even 1 day a week.

I typically break up my workouts into 2.  Meaning I alternate these 2 each time.  So I would do each once a week if I train twice a week.

Sometimes I get in 3 workouts a week, but I usually just do a partial workout on the third day, maybe just arms.

Three days a week does help my body.  I get stronger.  I get bigger muscles.  My belly gets flatter and I lose weight.  I look sexier with some definition and less face fat.  With all the good things it does for me, you'd think I would just order my life around 3 days a week.

But 3 days a week also gets me injured and more susceptible to illness.  Not just susceptible, I get ill.

Masculine Weight Training Quick Tips

  • Weight train 1 to 2 times a week.  This equates to 4 to 8 times a month.
  • Focus on the main lifts.  Bench, bent rows, overhead presses, squats and deadlifts.
  • Try to get your workout done in 1.5 hours or less.  One hour is better.
  • Try to workout with less volume.  Less reps, less sets and more days between workouts.
  • Don't rush your workouts.  This leads to injury when you are fatigued,
  • Don't get injured.
  • Spend as little time and energy warming up as possible.
  • Don't stretch.
  • Don't do cardio before you weight train.
  • Focus on weight training, not cardio.
  • Do cardio on non-weight training days.
  • Do ONE heavy set for each exercise.
  • Try to get 5 good reps on the big exercises.  Once you do the 5 reps, you go up in weight a little next workout.
  • Do a few more reps on the other exercises.  But not too many.  6 to 8.  10 to 12.
  • Eat less enough to keep your belly a little flatter, but don't worry about having a six pack or being ripped.
  • With the one heavy set idea, you can incorporate a drop set or 2 with higher reps and lighter weight on the bench press.  Also, if you can only get a rep or 2 or 3 on the lift, you may want to drop the weight significantly and get 5 good reps. 
  • Do a shorter workout during the work week and a longer workout on the weekend.  This saves energy and time during the week.

I know higher reps tend to give you the satisfying pump with a temporary size gain and visible veins popping out impressively.

But you have to be very careful with the exercise selection and weight involved.  You'll find that the best way to do high rep sets is with a weight that is almost ridiculously light for you on an exercise that you are very experienced at that you perform under extreme control and perfect form.

Masculine Weight Training for Normal Guys or Office Workers

Most of us work in an office.  You have to be satisfied with being office worker strong and as muscular and dense as your body and masculine weight training routine allows.

You'll never be real man strong.  The kind of strength that men who work full time with their bodies develop.

Never.

This is just something you will have to deal with.

Your hands and forearms will never be as thick and powerful and overall developed as a man who does physical work all day, every day.  Or the man who takes steroids for years and trains all the time with big weights.

Just deal with the reality of it and avoid comparing yourself with other men.  Especially with men who have an enormously unfair advantage.

But you can get normal guy strong.  Where you are bigger and badder than you are now.

› › Masculine Weight Training

The only way I could become the happier man I am today was by leaving my wife.  You might be in the same situation I was in.  I suggest you take a look at my book - Leave Your Wife & Become a Happier Man with the 3 Step System.

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