my opinion
This is a good point. Genetics can be very hard to evaluate in beginners. It is rare to see a raw beginner who reeks of pro potential before touching a weight.
I have seen numerous pics of pros before they began training and their was little to nothing about them which indicated they were a pro in the making. Many of these guys had average structures, nothing special in terms of shape or lines (which often can't really be seen until fully developed), and they weren't any larger than your normal guy.
When I owned my gym you'd have average looking guys genetically come in and start lifting and bam... They would grow quicker than anyone else around them.. You won't know someone's genetics until they grab that weight..
So true. So true.
This is a good thread so more on that topic before returning to the OP . . .
Regarding the recent posts about potential . . . many make some good points
but I also think a like number are missing a huge factor / indicator and that is
the ‘rate of growth’.
We have all seen before and after images of very successful bodybuilders which
I think in retrospect, do a great disservice to most ‘normal’ people. The commercial
interests prey on these unsuspecting souls who might and do say to themselves . . .
self: I looked like or look like he did when I was that age . . . all I need to do is X, Y
and Z and I will look like them. An understandable thought process until the reality
of the situation hits you across the face like a used catfish and you wind up consuming
everything including the kitchen sink, run your ass into debt, destroy any worthwhile
relationship you happen to fall into (not develop because you are too self-absorbed),
just because of some before and after pic? Come on!
In very few cases can you judge the potential, the eventual ultimate development
of a trainee by their beginning photographs. I am not going to list them all but
suffice to say the list is long and what they looked like before or at the early stages
of training was in many cases (most?) nothing short of unimpressive and insignificant.
But where these folks shined, what separated them from you and I, was their rate
of change once exposed to weight training, a proper diet and AAS, insulin and GH
and the combined response to all these external factors.
I think from what I have seen (and I have a very extensive collection of before and
after fotos) is that most were lean at the start. Of course there are exceptions but
being lean and athletic from the get go seems to help, not hurt. And while many
teenagers look like then, it is when they hit the weights is when the proverbial shit hit
the fan.
Let me make this perfectly clear . . . I have zero problems with giving this ‘sport’ a
shot but you don’t have to put your health in jeopardy to know if have what it takes.
Once you start training . . . and not that hard or that much . . . it will be immediately
obvious you and to anybody and everybody around you that you just might possesss
something special.
And this will not take a very long time to ascertain. A few months to a few years. If
you don’t have it then, then you never will. Most trainees abtain the majority of their
growth in the first 3 to 5 years. Beyond that the manipulation of other factors (site
injecting, GH, slin, bla, bla, bla) will and do influence where you end up. Make no
mistake about this.
What does all this have to with the OP . . . ‘Why I don't come on anymore’; for me
it is not the unfortunate that are dying, it is the lack of training / diet / and lifestyle
topics that are in seemingly short supply. Hell . . . I am far from a beginner but if I
go the beginners forum, I am hard pressed to help, to be of any value . . . it is all about
drugs.
The drafts file in my Microsoft Outlook has about 10 subjects – topics I have started
to write about as a top post or as a reply but as fast as I write and as fast as I think (which
is fast) I quickly lose interest . . . say to myself; WTF I am I doing this. I will just fall on
deaf ears . . . Not that I have any great pearls of wisdom to distribute but sometimes I feel
like dear friend said to be (wrote) over forty years ago . . .
“while I am certainly no longer naive enough to think that I can change the world, or
even do much in the way of redirecting fools -- I do think that the concentrated efforts
of a few reasonable people can do quite a lot in the way of halting the spread of insanity;
if we can't heal the sick, perhaps we can at least inoculate the upcoming generation of
young bodybuilders with the needle of truth, -- and if the present unhealthy trend can be
reversed, perhaps weight training will someday be accorded the reasonable consideration
it truly deserves”
May you all be well.
alfresco
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