Consistency is among the most important factors that determine whether or not you will reach your goal of getting big (other factors include: a great level of determination, a burning desire to get big, a good and specific plan, and a clear deadline). It is not difficult to go to the gym for a grueling session that will leave you sore for the next couple of days. It is a totally different matter, however, to be able to keep doing that on a long-term, consistent basis of 3-5 times a week, almost every week of the year, almost every year until you cannot physically afford to do it anymore. You grow muscle simply by giving it stress, always MORE stress in one session than the last, and by giving yourself ample rest and nutrition for proper recovery.
Obviously, then, being gung-ho for one or two weeks or even a few months is not enough to get you big. Especially for ectomorphs, even if you gain some muscles after that short period, you will soon lose it all away if you don’t keep on working hard. After all, nature never intends for your body to have much muscle anyway.
The question now is: How can you be consistent?
By having a consistent lifestyle.
How can you have a consistent lifestyle? By following basically the same routine everyday, with maybe a very slight degree of variation for weekends and holidays. For example, you can vary your meals just enough so that you can stuff enough food down your throat everyday. As we are all busy with thousands of things to worry about, I think it would be best to pretty much eat the same thing everyday. After all, eating is now a JOB, not something you do for sheer pleasure or to survive. Other examples: go to bed, wake up, go to the gym, and eat meals at the same times everyday, regardless of whether it is weekend or weekday.
What are some of the factors that bring chaos to your lifestyle? Friends, family, new activities, new hobbies, etc. In short, anything that gets introduced to your life after you have already settled down with a good routine. As you first start to train seriously, it is best to make training your number 1 priority in life for at least 3 months. You will make progress, understand almost everything you need to know about training, and get into a healthy and consistent lifestyle. After that, slowly and carefully, you can introduce more activities to your life.
RECAP: Ectomorphs like you will NEVER get big unless you are consistent with your efforts and lifestyle. Friends, family, new activities, new hobbies, etc. are all possible sources of chaos to your lifestyle. So be careful.
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December 2nd, 2009 → 3:28 pm @ nguyentuanhoa
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