It wasn’t long ago that my frame was carrying roughly 30% body fat and was devoid of most of the muscle size that it currently holds. In other words, I was fat and if I’d merely dropped the weight – I would have been skinny. My recent "cracking of the code" of what it takes for a genetically-challenged, non-drug using bodybuilder to make impressive and ongoing muscle gains has dramatically improved my physique. Yet at the same time, it’s elicited the quirky peculiarities of comments and questions that can only be borne out of a pastime and/or profession that’s mired in a myriad of misconceptions and half-truths.
Let’s take one that I was hit with about a week ago as an example. I was leaving the gym after a highly successful workout (I judge my workouts by how successful they are – not necessarily by how hard they are) when an acquaintance stopped me with a compliment. "You’ve really leaned down and muscled up" he observed aloud. "You must be doing something right."
I turned quickly toward the voice, impulsively ready to reciprocate for the cool words. It was the guy behind the counter – a co-owner of the gym. "Thanks!" I said. "Now I’m about as lean as you are, Joe. And I seem to be gaining muscle even faster without the excess body fat."
Joe nodded with a smile. "Yea" he said. "…And now the muscle you’re gaining is ‘quality muscle’."
Quality muscle? That one caused me to outwardly cringe a bit. Then he said it again for reemphasis and I cringed a lot. I wondered what the hell he was thinking. Did he really believe there is such a thing as "non-quality muscle"? I also wondered where on earth I’d heard that before – because I knew it wasn’t the first time.
Another example: A month or so ago, I was approached in the gym by a co-member whom I speak with occasionally about training. This guy is in his early fifties and admitted to me that he’d used "the juice" when he was younger. Now he seems to be so attached to his ‘old-school’ methodologies that his ability to make progress has landed on the slippery slope of regression. After not seeing me for awhile, he noticed my increased arm size and became inquisitive. "Are you training heavy?" he asked.
"What?" I answered. I was honestly confused by the question. Let’s face it; ‘heavy’ is a relative term. Heavy compared to what? Compared to what I used to train with? Yes – most definitely. Heavy compared to the poundage Ronnie Coleman uses? Definitely not! If a trainee weighs 120 pounds and has 13-inch arms, then a workout weight of 135 pounds on the bench press might be heavy.
Maybe this guy was attempting to find out how many reps I’ve been using. Since I wanted more specificity before answering his question, I said, "What do you mean by heavy?" That invoked an expression from him like I was as dense as a doornail.
"You know…heavy." He replied. "Are you training heavy?"
"OOoooh…heavy!" I said in recognition. "Yea, I’m heavily in use of volume overload in increments to which my muscles need constantly adapt so that they consistently grow stronger and bigger."
Now his expression changed to one that looked like he’d wished he had never asked the question. I didn’t see him for the rest of my workout.
But probably nowhere are bodybuilding’s widespread misconceptions more aptly expressed than in the common two-word phrase: "gain weight" – as in "I want to gain some weight." This is often heard spilling from the mouth of a young male who’s fed up with his skinny body and simply sees any additional size to his physique as being a good thing. Too often, this leads to over-eating, over-training, and not much headway in his quest to eradicate the appearance of a skeletal frame deficient of sizeable musculature.
This can happen due to the simple lack of specificity in the notion of "gaining weight". Think about it: there’s a world of difference between the two kinds of weight a person can gain. If we eat more calories than we burn off, we store the excess as fat. Yet this isn’t even remotely similar to the cause-and-effect actions necessary for gaining muscle. Even so, many young guys think they need simply pile down calories and train like hell and they’ll eventually get a substantial gain in "solid weight". This haphazard approach can work for a while in some cases, but it inevitably ends in a frustrating progress plateau.
The blurred thinking that causes a person to lump all weight gain into a single concept is the same kind that leads them to believe there’s such a thing as "quality muscle". After all, it’s safe to assume that a person speaking of "quality muscle" is referring to muscle without body fat marbled in with it. But it’s only the erroneous notion that somehow these two tissues have an intertwining relationship that can fuel the belief that the presence of fat can affect the "quality" of the muscle. Muscle is muscle – and when you gain it, you’ve acquired something of quality. And even though marbled-in fat is generally considered an unfavorable condition, losing it won’t make the nearby muscle tissue of any higher quality.
Muscle tissue on the skeletal frame is a quality attribute. And on a side note – it takes a bit more specificity in strategy to pack it on naturally than simply "training heavy".