A downside of being a teenager is that you lack experience. You don’t know what works and what doesn’t. This makes you controllable. When you add the classic teenage crisis, you have a recipe for a disaster.

One of the most frequently chosen ways to prove your manhood as a teenager is to acquire muscle mass to intimidate the boys and impress the girls.

There are smart businessmen who exploit this phenomenon to print money. It’s a well-known fact that the majority of the coins in the fitness industry comes from the beginners eager to grow.

Why are teenagers so stupid?

Many parents treat their kids as very unique and special creatures since a very young age. Ultimately, this results in the formation of a fairy tale world full of flowers and rainbows where every story has a happy ending. It seems that the goal of every parent is to keep his children in a state of ignorance for as long as possible. This leaves teenagers unprepared for the real battle. The lack of preparation is transmitted from generation to generation.

One of the ways to prepare your child for the world is to just speak the truth – the human world is ruled by evil people willing to do almost anything to make a buck, and if something sounds too good to be true, it is. We are living in hell, ladies and gentlemen.

Mom, I need to build muscle. I want to be a real man.

What’s manlier than having big arms? Nothing.

Hence, to become a real man, the average teenager starts stealing coins from mom’s purse to buy powders under the code name creatine and whey protein. After all, the biggest men in the gym say that the secret to growth is proper protein intake coupled with Joe Weider’s training principles, of course. Consequently, many teenagers skip meals to buy supplements. Ironic, isn’t it?

A few seasons go buy, but growth is nowhere to be seen. The guys in the magazines still carry about five trucks more muscle mass than the teen even though has enough creatine boxes to build a house.

“Where is the problem? Maybe I need to change the brand because my body has adapted to it already,” asks the teen and immediately goes online to search for new supplements.

The length of this cycle depends on the number of brain cells located in the cranium of the teenager in question. Dumber and stubborn people may stay in that state until their own kids become teenagers ready to continue the worship of Creatine.

Hey, fuckers! I want my money back!

Sooner or later, however, most teenagers realize that something terribly wrong is going on and start to complain online and offline. After all, those USD 20 000 could have been invested in something much more beneficial than whey a.k.a. pig food.

The response of the big guys is that the lack of results is due to the missed anabolic window. In other words, the nutrients must be imported into the body at the right time. Otherwise, growth will not occur. Upon receiving this important piece of information, the teenager has something new to work on. He immediately starts googling “anabolic window” on his smartphone.

After a quick search, he learns that Mr. Ph.D. Natural Bodybuilder says that the best time to take whey protein is 20.345 minutes after the last set. If you take it prior or after this point, you are doomed to fail and to remain as small as an insect for the rest of your life.

A few more seasons pass, but the mirror still does not report the expected results.

“What is the problem? Are my genes that bad? Can’t I get as big as Frank Zane naturally like the rest of the fitness models? Why can’t I? FML and fuck mommy and daddy for giving me such horrible genetics for getting big!,” writes the angry teenager as a Facebook status after cracking one off.

“Even porn actors are bigger than me…”, adds the angry teen while observing his recently acquired forearm pump.

Maybe you just need more supplements?

Once the desperation starts to prevail, most teens turn to modern spirituality and begin reading self-help books.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up,” reads the teen out loud and puts the book on the table – the mouth open in amazement; the eyes engorging with confidence.

This quote made by Thomas A. Edison a.k.a. the guy who stole everything from Nikola Tesla hits the teenager like that brick from the movie Home Alone.

The next day the teenager goes back to the health store and buys every supplement under the Sun – protein, creatine, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, zinc, magnesium, calcium, fish oil, pre-workout drinks, weight gainers, anaconda, vertigo, muscle milk, Gatorade, glutamine…etc. Then he goes back home happy with his new purchases. On the way back, he imagines the day when he will go to the mall with a 10/10 girl holding his massive arm.

The teenager starts taking his new candies religiously. Unfortunately, nothing happens, again. Even the delusional guys on forums fail to see progress in his before and after photos.

Did you get some sleep, honey?

The big guys in the gym say that the formula for growth is – LIFT+EAT+SLEEP x Infinite REPEAT.

The teen has improved his lifting and eating as much as possible, but his sleep is not perfect. Part of the problem is that he spends too much time on Internet forums trying to find the secret to getting massive and shredded.

So, what do you do when you have trouble sleeping? You go to the supplement store to buy some sleeping supplements. That’s exactly what the teenager in our story did. On the way back, he also bought ear buds and sleeping blinds.

The sleeping supplements had to be working because the teenager slept for 8 hours straight the very next day. Of course, he wasn’t sure whether the effect from the supplements was placebo or reality, but it didn’t matter.

After 5 months of hardcore sleeping, the teenager decides to look in the mirror to see who’s who. Well, there was nobody new there – only his old little muscles. His musculature had not improved despite the sleeping marathon. Maybe it was time to finally quit and pick up Chess or Starcraft 2?

Taking the red pill

The teenager has to grow up and realize that the fancy bottles sold by hot women in health stores are nothing more than a deception.

Supplements don’t have magical properties and are as effective as food at best.

The “research” behind bodybuilding supplementation is sponsored by the supplement companies themselves. It’s a cool scheme used in every aspect of the human world – the rich men are sponsoring both sides of the war to ensure that they end up on top while the rest are left licking their wounds and fighting each other.

Once you take the red pill, you will feel lonely because nobody around you will understand. People prefer to believe that the movie is real. I am sorry, but it’s not.

Do I need supplements at all?

Probably not. Some supplements can be useful in very specific circumstances, but ultimately – you don’t need them to reach your natural or unnatural potential. Also, many supplements come with minor side effects.

P.S. Don’t steal from your mom’s purse.