Do Not Do Bodybuilding!
The most popular fitness regime is the most useless
Bodybuilding is the easiest fitness approach: isolate muscle groups, aim for the pump short-term and for hypertrophy long-term, and obsess over aesthetics like an insecure teenage girl. No function, no muscle-group synergy, no intensity, no explosiveness, and very little skill required. Easy.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not here to disparage lifting weights in the gym. I’m here to say that lifting weights in the gym is secondary to any fitness regime, and not a complete fitness regime by itself — it can’t be.
I began with the bodybuilding mindset
I grew up in a home where sports were not only discouraged, they were disallowed. Not only were we forbidden to go out and play with other kids, but we weren’t allowed to pursue athletic activities (save for the obligatory dancing and swimming classes they forced us to go through). I hated swimming — it’s a useless sport that never reaches peak performance due to breath limitation. When I asked if I could join the local karate club (the only martial arts available to us at the time), my father went ballistic: “My children will not learn violence! Karate is for bad boys, not for my sons!” When I asked to do gymnastics classes after school, my father said, “Sports steal time from studying. Sports are for lazy and stupid children who don’t study. Your only purpose as a child is to study to get good grades and get into university. You have no other purpose right now.” Thanks, dad.
So my only option was to do — in secret — home exercises from what I saw in movies, and then, when I got a bit brazen, steal money from my parents to join — again in secret — the local gym. I was 14, insecure, friendless, and depressed, and I still managed to enter that old-style gym full of buff dudes and rusty weights all by myself to ask for the owner. Proud of that kid.
Anyway.
I began lifting weights, and results came quickly. I got some muscle and definition, and my peers began to notice. Insecure boys would constantly flatter me, the even more insecure ones would antagonise me, and the lusty girls would constantly want to touch me (I was too insecure and immature to do anything). Besides, the girls I liked (the good girls) were seemingly appalled by my bad-boy appearance.
Regardless, I started to feel more confident (or less insecure) because I thought lifting weights was what fitness was all about. I thought the only way to work out was isolating muscle groups in a weekly split routine, and aiming for the pump. It isn’t.
Bodybuilding is but one tiny niche approach. Yes, isolating muscle groups can be useful, but as an accessory to more serious and complete fitness goals.
The downside
In the end, the bodybuilding mindset gave me more grief than solace. I looked muscular, and it immediately made other guys insecure and uncomfortable. They’d hate me and get antagonistic with me at first sight. They saw my mere presence (even though I always tried to wear modest clothing) as me showing off and belittling them by comparison.
They saw me, just by being in the room, as a flex, as an initiation of antagonism. So they felt they were responding to my supposed “initiation of aggression” by being aggressive against me “in return”. The more muscular I got, the more I was met with rudeness, subtle disrespect and put-downs, and with sarcastic inquiries about PED use, simply to discredit and humiliate me — implying I was so desperately insecure as to use PEDs.
All these micro-aggressions were subtle; intense enough to make an impact, but also diplomatic enough to maintain plausible deniability in case I called them out on it. This is the most snake-like type of disrespect: done in a way that subtly humiliates you, but if you assert yourself, they make you sound paranoid.
Sure, I got (and still get) the occasional, sly compliment by those with intentions of flattery more than connection, but I have mostly received negative responses to my physique than good ones.
The worst response, I believe, was by the women who are put off by guys obsessed with their appearance… Just so happened that these have always been my type — the women who value more than just surface.
For women, the better I looked, the worse women I attracted because of it: the materialistic ones, the hedonistic ones, the shallow ones who appreciate packaging more than content.
Real sports
A good fitness regime must be one with a functional purpose. Posing on stage, oiled up, wearing a Speedo, isn’t a function. Any other sport will do: classic Olympic sports, contact sports, strength sports, endurance sports — anything other than bodybuilding.
Contact sports or any other proper sport are more grounded. You won’t look too muscular, but that’s a good thing — you don’t want too much attention from the wrong people.
With martial arts, for example, you’ll radiate even more confidence than from just having a gay beach body, while also carrying a disarming humility that comes from contact sports, knowing that you get your ass handed to you every session.
Bodybuilding also makes you slow, and the more muscular you get, the harder it is to handle yourself in a fight. You deep down know this, and you’re insecure about it. Just look at all those bodybuilders: the more muscle they pack, the more insecure they get, needing more and more attention, more and more PEDs to grow, more and more insecurity to manage.
I’m not saying quit the traditional weights gym. Far from it. I still go to the gym, lift heavy and then light for the pump. It’s a meditation, and it can be a pleasant environment. But that is not the main focus or goal of my general fitness. It’s my accessory, my maintenance.
Bodybuilding as a sport
Let’s differentiate between recreational sport and professional sport. Almost all recreational sports become corrupt and unhealthy when they become professional.
It’s not only PED use, without which no participant would be competitive. All pros are on PEDs. How do I know that? Because when the least competitive athletes are caught juicing, you’d be naive to think the top competitors are all natural. Testing is just for show — they take out a fall guy every now and then to give us the false sense of “prudence”, thus legitimising their sport, just like the government does in general. I say legalise all PEDs and let’s stop pretending that the emperor wears clothes.
Bodybuilding is not a proper sport. There is no objective measurement of performance. It’s all relative — pose to please the judges and try to win their subjective favour, scoring points and a subjective rank. Not just your physique counts: it’s also the way you pose, the way you smile, the way you walk on stage. Total meaningless nonsense.
I used to have a best friend who’d made the mistake of participating in pro bodybuilding. He said it wasn’t about who worked the hardest. It wasn’t even about the best athletic-specific genetics. Bodybuilding success was down to two things:
The best doctors who can get the best PEDs for your personal profile, while optimising your dosing, and
Your genetic tolerance to PEDs.
That’s it. That’s all bodybuilders compete on.
That was enough for me to realise that bodybuilding was not only useless and dangerous, but it was embarrassing. And so many kids are obsessed with it because appearances sell well to the impressionable who lack depth of perception.
Imagine wearing a Speedo, oiling up, and posing needily in front of people who objectify you — after having sacrificed your health, independence, and athletic function for “aesthetics”. That’s pro bodybuilding. Hard pass.
My fitness regime in 2026
Want to know what my focus is now? The main focus is boxing classes and one-on-ones. Every now and then, a HIIT workout (e.g. CrossFit). Then some traditional weight training, involving big powerlifting moves with some muscle isolation, combined with complex compound moves. I do a lot of accessory, functional prehab/rehab as well, in the gym or at home. And let’s not forget the skills-focused drills. And there’s walking and running too. Love the escapism of it, especially in summer afternoons.
I don’t obsess over programming or counting calories. My workouts are random; I just have a vague idea of what I want to do.
Nutrition is the same: I follow dietary principles: avoid starches, sugars, and seed oils, consume disciplined quantities, prefer whole foods and sources of antioxidants, and apply food-intake timing (early lunch and dinner).
Supplements: vitamins & minerals, omega 3, probiotics, and the occasional sugar-free Red Bull (taurine) — my guilty pleasure. That’s it. No protein, no creatine, no bullshit nonsense fitness supplements, no disgusting protein bars. And definitely no PEDs — not even once ever.
Bottom line
Whether you’re a male or female, my suggestion is that your fitness focus should not be aesthetic: that’s shallow and gay. Aesthetics will come with whatever other sport you do. You might not look like a magazine-cover fitness model, but trust me, you don’t want or need to be.
Looking like a fitness model will get you more enemies than friends, and will get you less-than-ideal friends while alienating the good ones.
Good people avoid hanging out with self-obsessed materialists who care more about looks than function. It’s the same as cars: give me a Volvo SUV over a bullshit Lamborghini any day of the week. Function over looks.
Appearance screams insecurity and neediness for cheap, meaningless validation.
Instead, focusing on function more than looks signals what kind of person you are: one who values depth and meaning.
Hmm.
I just read this article by el Gato Malo (I HIGHLY recommend his SubStack … It is very secular, very much focused on “current events,” as they say, but it is very rare that I disagree with his takes on things, and he has a very engaging writing style). The whole article is great IMO especially if you are looking for some reasoned positivity and optimism about this dark-seeming world … The reason I’m posting it here, however, is that, while reading his description of the confirmation bias situation, I immediately thought of your experience with the other males after you started working out.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/weaponizing-confirmation-bias
I’m not saying you are wrong, or that they WEREN’T intimidated by you … But is it possible that something like what he describes here led to the discord that you experienced? (Ie, you thought, perhaps subconsciously, that they might view you in a negative light once you had larger muscles, which led to subconscious signals that they picked up on, which led to more subconscious behavioral adjustments on their part, etc., etc.?)
Wow.
This is so totally interesting to me for so many reasons. I didn't even realize that you had a fitness 'blog as well. Interestingly enough, I was just about to write about bodybuilding (briefly) in my next article. So, funny thing, that "coincidence" (never such a thing).
Beyond that, though, there are a couple of things that really jump out at me about this. Things where our thinking or experiences or what-have-you differ, somewhat, which I try to find as an opportunity to learn different perspectives. This is especially true as you are a male thinker, and I am incarnated as a female on Earth.
I know this is hella long, but if you get a chance, I'd be curious to hear your perspective on this article ... I labored over it all last week, but I'm not honestly sure if I got much useful information across:
https://prometheuslost.substack.com/p/the-homunculus-of-you
There is a lot about what you just wrote here that puts me in mind of these ideas, however, but man are they slippery ideas ... Let me see if I can pinpoint it. I might just be rambling.
The first thing that struck me was the fact that other males seemed to react so poorly to your appearance. I guess I'm not so much surprised at that aspect, *really* -- people, both male and female, get intimidated by perceived physical su-periority. (I didn't type the word that way, but it appeared like that somehow; this fascinates me, and might have meaning, so I'm leaving it.) I think I am more surprised at the fact that you cared about this. This isn't a judgement, mind you ... See, I have spent most of my life as someone who looks ... "Different," in ways that could be considered "intimidating." I've never cared to blend in. For most of my academic career, I dressed in what could be called kind of an "alt-punk" look of sorts (leather jacket etc). This is just how I liked to dress (still do sorta kinda though with a lot less give-a-fuck about it now). I always sorta figured that, if someone irrevocably judged me based on my appearance, that person wasn't someone whom I wanted to be friends with.
I remember how, in vet school, someone who DID wind up becoming a very good friend (though we've long lost contact now) told me that she did just that. She said to me that she first saw me and thought, "Oh, we cannot be friends." She assumed that I would be standoffish or mean or rude -- something -- which I wasn't. As soon as she realized that I was not what she had assumed, we became good friends. We thought that was kinda neat. So, I guess it just surprises me that you were put-off by the others' responses.
It also REALLY surprises me to learn that the sort of female you were attracted to, intellectually speaking, was put-off by a more muscular appearance. I can understand and see why you might have attracted superficial women by sporting a socially "competitive" body ... The converse surprises me a little bit, though. I dunno. Maybe not, maybe it shouldn't ... Either way, it is interesting. May I ask how you came to ascertain that this was happening?
There's a doctoral dissertation to be had here, heh. Last thing, since this is getting way long: about your last point, that is something about which we are fundamentally built differently. I am highly motivated by aesthetics, and this is something that I have had to come to terms with about myself, and even forgive myself for, if you will, because in modern Human society, where I currently reside, being aesthetically motivated *IS* seen as being "superficial." However, there are many things that, to me, NEED to "look right" or else, I would not want them. Vehicles, obviously, are a necessity (for most, anyway), and the performance generally beats out the aesthetics, but all things being equal, I'd rather a pretty vehicle than an ugly one. I place great emphasis on the aesthetic qualities of the animals that I breed, though of course, absent great temperament and good health, aesthetics are meaningless. (I COULD even argue, to play Devil's advocate a hair, that the shift towards functionality without regard to aesthetics is indicative of the gradual enshittification of society. Architecture is one of the most key examples. Vehicle design really is another one. All things being equal, why NOT make cars look cool, too?)
Now, again, I am not saying that my way of looking at things here is the superior one. It's not. Just different. Interesting.