Bodybuilding Month

This is me today. A big strong blob. This month I will attempt to live my life like a bodybuilder. Let's see what I look like in a month's time. pic.twitter.com/1Adia4vCww

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 mastodonapp.uk/@matttuckey (@matthewtuckey) March 4, 2023

You know I like my monthly projects. For years now, I’ve been meaning to do a month-long bodybuilding project, an attempt to live my life like a bodybuilder, just to see how it feels. I’ve been meaning to do it for years, back when I was a lot smaller than I currently am. I’m currently 81.4kg. A lot of this, sadly, is fat. 

What do bodybuilders do? 

Different types of weight training will procure different results. Are you training for a strongman competition, where you’ll be asked to lift more than the other competitors? Or for a bodybuilding competition, where you’ll be judged on the aesthetics of your muscle definition? Or are you training for a different sport, using weights to capitalise of specific kinetic abilities? 

I’m not sure I’m any of these. I just want to know how much I could lift if I put my mind to it. I’ve kept records of these for years, occasionally beating some of them. I haven’t beaten any personal bests since before Christmas, because… you guessed it. I’ve been a slob. 

This ends today. I have a plan. During the pandemic, one of the many books I read was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s New Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, which I think is fair to describe as the definitive guide to weight training. There’s a lot of guidance in this for all aspects of the sport: which gym to pick (too late for that, Oldham Community Leisure has had me 13 years), what personal equipment and clothing you’ll need, tracking progress etc., how many reps to do (6 for top weight, he says), how to work through the body making sure you keep it trained in proportion – all of this will be taken into account. 

Clean food from now on – a protein and veg diet. No treats or alcohol. I have some protein powder saved for this project too. I’ll follow recipes, have porridge breakfasts, 6am getups, gym before and after work, no phone in the bedroom disrupting sleep, lots of meal prep, gym classes Thursday and Friday night, sauna and steam on Saturdays, and chin-ups at home Sundays. Mondays I’ll rest (I’m too busy on Mondays). I’ll cut back on cardio and bodyweight exercises to focus more on lifting heavier. 45 minute Sessions will alternate between legs, back and chest (core included in each of these). 

It’s Saturday. How does this apply to psychology? 

Well, I love my junk food. I go through these periods of cutting it out and eating really healthily, and my weight plummets when I do. But then I go back to bad habits again. It’s an addiction: the nucleus accumbens, the pleasure centre in the bottom of the brain, requires dopamine, an addictive neurotransmitter. A neural pathway is formed at an early age, when we're given sweet treats, between the nucleus accumbens and the hippocampus, the memory centre. The brain is wired up to remember what we enjoy. All we have to do is trick the brain into forgetting the pleasures of sugar and salt, and give it something else to enjoy instead. Like the gym itself, or the reward of hitting a PB. 

The alarm is set. I’ve written this post and shared it – now I have to do it. I got back into my suit trousers as I said I would. (I can’t fit into them now, and it’s possible that with heavy weights I still might not.) Instead, let's see if I can hit 10 PBs this month.