A while back I decided to do dedicated forearm training including some arm wrestling exercises and grip routines. I made the needed equipment out of wood and spare parts. It worked well.
One time while doing my routine, I couldn’t help it and admitted the obvious:
I felt stupid.
I had to ask myself the obvious question—why was I trying to improve my grip? It had never failed me during everyday activities. Of course, like everybody else, I can deadlift more than I can hold in my hands, but that’s normal.
Why was I doing those arm-wrestling exercises? I didn’t have plans to arm wrestle anyone.
The answer to the question is hidden and yet obvious – my training lacked “actualization” and whenever that happens, your motivation and will to continue are shaken. It’s inevitable.
What’s “ACTUALIZATION”?
I prefer to explain this term with an example rather than psychological pirouettes.
Imagine that you build bicycle wheels. You make them pretty, strong, and balanced. They are perfect.
But you never put them on a bicycle. You just store them in a closet and hang the nicest on the wall.
Well, those wheels are not “actualized”.
Because their actual function is to spin on a bike and take the passenger/engine somewhere. If they are not doing that, they remain “sad”.
Lack of Actualization = Sadness
In most cases, depression is caused by the inability to actualize an important part of oneself. Or in other words, your actions feel sterile, pointless, empty, unimpressive, retarded even. And no matter what you do, the feeling doesn’t change. Because you are replacing one “chocolate bar” with another. The taste is different, but the macros are the same.
I will give a somewhat brutal example that I see more often than I’d like.
There are many women (and subsequently men) who are childless despite being in their prime or beyond. There is an obvious layer of sadness surrounding them, but they push it away and fill their lives with activities that will allegedly actualize their existence.
But job switches, trips, and new clothes don’t help as they don’t address the root cause.
Past a certain age, 99% of women want to be mothers. There’s a reason why the term “motherly instinct” exists.
There are situations when this isn’t possible (health issues, infertility…etc.) But in those cases, you don’t have control, and actually, you are closer to an actualized state because you’ve done what’s possible and there’s that.
But most women aren’t infertile or sick. They don’t have children for economic, cultural, psychological and societal reasons.
And eventually, that catches up with them.
At the end of the day, God gave you that womb and breasts for a reason – to bear a child and feed it. When you are not doing that, you are like the wheel example – hanging on the wall (or should I say on Instagram) and remaining unactualized.
The same applies to men too, but to a smaller degree.
Why a smaller degree?
Because it’s a lot harder for a man to reproduce. Sex a.k.a. the activity needed for a new life to start is 100% controlled by women.
The following scenario is common in history:
A woman wants to have children, but she is single (or her man is sterile). She goes “away” from the tribe to “travel”, but engages in sexual activities with one single goal – to conceive. Then, impregnated by an alpha, she returns.
A man can’t do that. Sure. You can impregnate a random woman, but you can’t keep the kid (unless money).
Women have a lot more control over that process for physiological and societal reasons.
I’ve seen the following scenario – a woman was routinely coming home late and explained her attitude with “treatments for fertility” or hormonal procedures, to be precise.
In reality, she was lying to her boyfriend while using a faceless Tinder account to hook up with men. Eventually, she got pregnant.
Moral or not, she achieved her goal via “female leverage” and actualized herself for the moment.
This is also the reason why “involuntary celibacy” is so hard on men.
Your penis has 2 functions. And when one of them is denied, you remain “unactualized” and depressed. And no amount of peripheral activities can quite compensate for that.
How do you “actualize” something?
There are two ways.
One is to use the thing for what it was designed to do. (Natural actualization).
The second is to create/enter a situation where the stakes are higher. (Artificial actualization)
The kid example above is natural actualization.
Artificial actualization is essentially man-made. However, this doesn’t mean it’s not important. It certainly and is and fulfills 80% of our existence.
Most activities that we do can only be actualized artificially.
For example, powerlifting is precisely that. No one on Earth has to bench, squat, or deadlift extremely heavy for natural actualization. So, we create artificial competitions among ourselves.
That artificial environment immediately actualizes one’s effort to move the heaviest barbell. The context may be a simulation, but it’s close enough to reality to create a real sensation within a human.
The same applies to bodybuilding contests. They actualize the pursuit of hypertrophy by creating a situation where it matters.
MONEY
Another way to actualize something as fast as possible is to try to make money out of it.
Some people don’t like that, of course, and say that they don’t want to do their hobbies for money.
Many of those people are liars. The artist who “wouldn’t paint like that” would immediately “paint like that” if money printing was possible.
For that reason, a minority of people purposefully try to make money out of their hobbies.
Sometimes the goal is the money itself while other times, it’s the need to boost one’s adrenaline.
Whatever the case is, it works, but only if the activity eventually generates something. More often than not, it doesn’t for a multitude of reasons.
Most Natties Can’t Find Actualization and Quit
There are 2 main reasons to quit lifting:
a. It’s hard.
b. You can’t actualize it.
The second one affects the first one too.
The brutal reality is that natural bodybuilding is very difficult to actualize in the current settings because people have been acclimated to seeing non-natural physiques all the time.
Eventually, every natty reaches a point past which it becomes increasingly hard to keep lifting with the same intensity and desire.
For instance, your drive to go from 15 to 20 pull-ups is a lot smaller than it is to go from 0 to 10. But if someone gave you 1000 bucks to do it, suddenly your drive will be boosted.
As I said, money is a fast way to actualize something as it is directly related to one’s survival and standard of living.
But how can naturals earn money from lifting?
- You can become a coach/personal trainer.
- You can make a fitness YouTube channel (the niche is EXTREMELY competitive and success rates are low).
- You can start a blog and earn money from ads and products. Again – the area is super competitive and you will be competing with multi-million dollar agencies and well-established brands. Your chances of massive success are fairly low.
- You can start a social media channel and make money by pimping some training-related products.
- You can build a nice physique and work as a male *** satisfying the sexual urge of rich middle-aged women. (I am semi-serious here.)
….etc.
Non-Natties Have an Easier Time Actualizing
A steroid-supported physique (e.g., 220lbs at 5’10” while being 15-20% BF) is a lot easier to actualize thanks to the EXTRA size.
Natties look like swimmers who do pull-ups before mowing the lawn on a Saturday.
Non-natties turn heads. And that head-turning is another form of ACTUALIZATION. The size instantly results in respect from men and therefore acts as self-defense too.
Also, it’s a lot easier to accomplish the money tasks above when you are big by today’s standards.
No one would listen to Gregg Doucette if he was natty, for instance.
CBum would be a bum if he wasn’t injecting since the age of majority.
Arnold wouldn’t be Arnold without Dbol.
You get the picture…
Of course, that doesn’t mean that every injector has an amazing life. But even on a smaller scale, lifting seems a bit less pointless (although there’s a price to be paid – side effects and such).
Bodybuilding shows are an artificial form of muscle-actualization. There is zero survival need to be that big at that price. But muscle-comparing contests create a context where glute striations matter.
Non-actualized Lifting Has No Direction and Often Goes Nowhere
If you have no direction, you often end up where the wind leaves you.
And natural muscle construction feels that way too. I will be honest. My lifting felt the most actualized when I actually cared about the numbers I was lifting back in my permabulking-natty-powerlifting-delusional period (before NoN existed).
I was still going nowhere as I was a natty built-to-deadlift, but it felt like I was accomplishing something as I had a set goal that actualized my effort and the specific lifts I was doing.
Obviously, that ship sunk too.
So, what do we have left here besides the money options I listed above?
1. Health/cope training
If you can’t actualize your lifting via a contest or money generation, there are two more things to try.
The first is to essentially give up, admit “natty death” and just do the bare minimum to maintain.
This is known as lifting for health a.k.a. cope lifting. It’s SUPER important as you get older, though.
2. Experiment/do whatever you like
You can pursue some feats of strength for the show.
Examples: one-arm pull-ups, handstands, closing Captains of Crush grippers, benching 2-3 plates…etc.
This is semi-actualization because the accomplishments don’t mean much once you acquire them. For instance, even if you close CoC 3, what are you going to do with your crushing grip?
Break people’s hands when you handshake?
Martial Arts
Martial arts are also a good example of this principle. From the perspective of the average person there, the main actualization is the cardio workout you get from hitting the bag and skipping the rope.
Why? First, 90% of martial arts are useless in a real-world fight. The other 10% are only potentially helpful. But before all, most people will never have to fight in real life, and even if it happens, there won’t be any remotely “fair” rules.
Some will say that martial arts have an “intimidation effect”. Well, it depends on how the fighter looks. For instance, if you don’t know who Manny Pacquiao is, you wouldn’t be all that scared. Meanwhile, a look from Aleksandr Karelin will make most men wish they had a license to carry a firearm. And that would be the case even if Karelin was selling popcorn on the street rather than wrestling.
Ironically, once again, money is the main way to actualize an activity.
In the case of pro fighters, gym owners, coaches…etc….money rather than fighting is the form of actualization.
Even Bruce Lee is also an example of this. He actualized his martial arts training via movies rather than actual fights. Some people even theorize that he wouldn’t be all that good in MMA settings even though he is effectively the inventor of MMA with his Jeet Kune Do.
Similar speculations are as useful as saying “What if Beethoven was a beatmaker…?”
Ok. This post is getting way too long…
Let’s save some writing energy for the next one!
What else can I say? Precise words, a great article as always….it is priceless…you are a great teacher…Guillermo Ríos, from Argentina…a big hug bro. Thank you.
Thank you !
Good article.
Thanks, bro!
No problem!
Well, too precise to tell general things, that’s called knowing the subject.
In my particular case, I managed to reach pull-ups with a weight of 55kg (I think more but with 1-2 repetitions), and in dips on rings, reaching those figures, only 10kg less, in this case, 45kg (on rings the basic weighted movements are much more difficult, progressing in weighted calisthenics is almost like bodybuilding, millimetrically), apart from that, the only thing that stopped me was a small injury, and although I had the basic knowledge of how to advance (correct training books, not steroid garbage and false gurus) I simply got mentally tired, now I do more entertaining things, I never thought of training directly and only the arms (https://nattyornot.com/arms-maximization-new-routine-for-the-largest-natty-arms-a-human-can-build/) and the back(https://nattyornot.com/the-eagle-lats-routine-lat-maximization/), officially it’s my first time doing it, so much so that there will still be fuel to train longer (although to be honest it bores me, I prefer simple things).
The only thing left for me is “Get lean. Lift. Stand tall. Live.” https://nattyornot.com/how-to-look-your-best-as-a-natural-bodybuilder/
Good lifts.
You are already training the lats pretty hard with the weighted chin-ups.
I do enjoy getting a good pump these days after training 33 yrs.
But you are spot in in this article.
Yes. This is something I missed in the post – the pump as well as the mental clarity and the ability to get out of your head are also an incentive to train.
I secretly had hope that, you will give a magical natty muscle building program at the end of the post. Maybe i still have some blue pill hope, that extraterrestrial growth will occur if i crack the code 😀
This hits in many levels. One of the most obvious for me is training, and I can very well agree with Truth’s experience with forearm training. For some reason I’ve always felt the same when training my arms, stupid. I still have couple of arms specialization programs in my back pocket, but I have never been able to do them. There are various reasons for that, but the biggest reason is that usually when I start those programs, I start to feel very stupid very quickly. Even during the first session. I just can’t keep putting so much effort for arms, there’s no actualization in that. Slightly bigger arms just don’t justify as a reasoning behind the thing, neither does a pump, although it’s nice.
Same with boxing. I did do some Thai boxing in the past just for fun by a recommendation from a friend. But, at some point I developed this feeling, a (artificial) need to be able to deliver a knockout punch if there ever happened to be a REASON for that. Since then, I was obsessed about it for a long time. I thought years about starting training in a boxing gym. But I never did. I think there just isn’t that much to actualize travelling 20+ km three times a week to learn to box / punch. The problem is that it would be very energy consumptive, it would also take time and money. And to be true, I have a feeling that as an old geezer, there wouldn’t really be that much in there to satisfy my need about punching some one out cold. Of course, I could be wrong, but I think it would mostly be fitness stuff. Of course, punching too, but not the way I would like.
I know that sparring is where it’s at, and it’s really needed to develop as a boxer. But I think there would hardly be any sparring either. And fitness stuff I’m already doing at home. So, to come in terms with my hope to be able to knock someone out, I probably would do better training at home, just training to deliver a well placed accurate and hard punch to the jawline. And this would be done in a deceitful way to cheat the opponent, and it would only be done if really, really, necessary, when no other option could be found. There really isn’t reasoning for that either. I never seek out any trouble and I stay away with all the obvious trouble situations. If I knew how to box better, I imagine I would still be fucked in the streets if I didn’t land the punch. Then again, why not aquire a gun, that’ll take people down too.
Money / Investing
This also came in my mind. In the past I wasn’t really interested about money and investing, I was terrified about investing, I thought it was some Gordon Gekko shit where you lose all your money. But years ago, it changed, unfortunately too late, but anyway, I got interested and I understood how it works. Then I found a strategy that works well for me, if I just manage stick to it. But still, almost daily i contemplate with this stuff. I think about different investing instruments I could probably use, I follow few online forums etc. I sometimes change my mind several times a month about which instruments I’m going to buy. But there’s no reason for that, It’s all very unimportant and irrelevant. We are talking about 0,03-0,05% expense rate differences. For what? I also think how I would invest IF I had a lot of money. But it’s not going to happen. Still, I keep doing that. About a year ago, a friend of my handed me a challenge, he said that for the next month or so, don’t think about investing or strength training at all. That was a very good challenge, and I should probably do it again.
Leanness
This has been one for me too. While ago there were some changes in my life, and because of those I couldn’t stick with my routines and so I gained some weight. On top pf those change came some other changes, and I quickly realized that I needed more money. One of the steps I did was that I streamlined my diet to what I call the “Bra Pitt” mode, where calories are relatively low. So, I was able to act to two goals, loosing weight, and using less money because of I ate less. I got fast under my starting weight, and I was able to save a lot in my eating costs. But then I thought why not go even lower with the weight. I have a slight idea of how much I should drop to see my sixpack, so I figured out that why not go all the way there. But of course, this is very troublesome for a person who isn’t that lean naturally. And then I started to think, why am I even doing this? What’s the point? Why suffer when I’ve already done enough in the situation where I’m at. With my face etc. they are not going to invite me to play Tyler Durden in remake of Fight Club, so there really is no reason for the very lean physique.
Nice article as usual.
Honestly, I initially skipped it because I thought it was 100% focused on bodybuilding (as I’ve mentioned other times, I’m not very into that topic), but I was wrong. You do an interesting exploration of the concept of “actualization” with plenty of real life examples most can relate and agree with.
There are definitely points in our lives where superficial things we previously enjoyed and found fulfilling aren’t anymore. Even if you try to get rid of the feeling by advancing to their “next level”, the fulfillment is short lived. For example, you feel stale in your current middle class job and believe that you will be happy again if you change to an industry leader (with all the grind it entails) to become upper middle class or even a millionaire. You somehow land the job, only to realize that despite the better salary and sense of achievement you still feel empty.
I just recently read this post online about the relationship between utility, happiness and cost, and I think it has a bit similar point what Truth has and what you commented: above
https://thehappyphilosopher.com/utility-happiness/
But great stuff, as always. Also nice to see other than bodybuilding folks in this site too.
The poster has it right with happiness being acceptance and gratitude. For example, there’s only one thing that I perceive would make my life (possibly) more full right now, but it would be at a cost, one I’d likely pay if in the right situation (the risk). That’s a good wife and kids. I’ve done all the other stuff, literally – career, fitness, even having upper 5% money. Once you have that it’s like “Big deal” until you go on to the next phase of life. Here’s where it gets interesting, since for some more meaning is in kids. And some are thoughtless. And some will be some western woman’s doormat, in general. But we’re all dead in the long run and knowing that the age to come (the next dimension, God et al) makes this world superficial apart from what we DO and create here – to prove what we are or what we trust in – one will understand the kids thing isn’t even all that important in the BIG picture. But one must accept that and be grateful, as the poster says, to be happy with, for example, being single. It can be done.
I’ve similar thoughts about this.
When you get old enough, you can’t hide from the realization of your own mortality. An urge to leave some kind of meaningful legacy behind arises, and like you point out, kids tend to be the most natural answer.
I’m open to the opportunity if it presents itself, but I’m not desperate and I don’t cling to delusional hopes. Currently, the ROI of dating most women in the West is abysmal and it’s better to be single if you aren’t lucky to find someone who is really worth it.
“Money is most efficiently spent buying utility. Money is inefficiently spent buying happiness.”
Absolutely. The article does a great job analyzing in depth exactly what I and others feel once they reach a high enough stage in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Thanks for sharing it.
Great posts Jose. Of course, we agree with one another and in a lot of ways, we are lucky to have the conveniences we have and the needs met, as you state. The one biggest one that all the materialist stuff foils, though, unless you have a community that restricts women, is the wife and family thing.
It’s really quite funny how objectively true it is that they have nearly all of their value at ages 18-25, and even earlier, but that’s illegal now mostly. It’s like women hate the fact that they mess it all up since they can’t think right, mature faster, peak earlier, and then get salty because they didn’t choose to cash in. That’s why the patriarchy always existed, of course, because when left to their own devices, they make bad decisions in 99% of cases.
Spoiler: god gave no womb and no breast to no one, cause he doesn’t exist. Maybe you meant evolution
Maybe you meant to understand the concept of a figure of speech?
He’s beyond existence.
I know that, and you can too, but it just might take a while. Open your soul and mind, and you’ll become aware of it. It has to be earnest, though.
I never had a “forearm” quest. Maybe i invested some time, but it was short. Mostly its genetics. My father have 70 yearsold, and even if he is not training (just maintanance a bit) he has the most powerful grip, even at his age. I had trained like 25 years, and i never had that grip power. I thought i was lazy and never had the guts to pay the price. But after found this page, everything was clear. He was “blessed” with good bones and muscles. Me, for the other side, i am an ectomorph.
But even so, he told me that forearm exercise wont help so much. He had a insane grip, but not bigger forearms. So he made an “forearm” day in the past. The result was that he had less strenght to do all other exercises (deadlift, rows) Actually, by doing all the compound exercises is enough to have good grip.
The health cope is legit. Eating clean, having good sleep and training can even make you look younger. In these days, its easy to say have a good sleep. But to do that…
I wish parkour were less painful and less risky sometimes, because i could do that stuff all the day, if i could have a bit more time.
At the end, we are gamers who are trying so hard to find any hack in this entropic nightmare called universe.
Grip and forearm size do not always correlate. Grip = finger muscles and tendons strength; Forearm size = wrist and arm flexors (brachioradialis)
Grip training doesn’t build big forearms. Wrist training is better. Hence wrist rollers = much better than grips for forearm growth.
Your father has “old man grip”. My grandfather had the same thing. (He died 12 years ago at 74). He was a welder. But it’s possible we sometimes overrate their grip due to childhood nostalgia/memories.
I doubt my grip right now is any weaker than my grandfather’s was.
This is a good point. When I still was motivated etc. and I trained more, I always did both, wrist extensors and flexors. I think that by training the fingers and the tendons, you can balance stuff very well, and it’s a healthy way too. One good thing with the calisthenics is that you naturally tend to do that work because you must work with open palms a lot.
My dad used to have great wrists, although this too can be a delusion because I was a kid then. But he did a lot with his hands, repaired cars etc. Then in his forties he started a desk job and pretty much stopped car stuff altogether for various reasons. And then those wrists have kind of vanished. Guess it just happens.
Now both mentioned, yeah, my father did those wrist exercises. I can not guess if he really get bigger forearms. bigger than me for sure. I did those exercise for a short time, in my 16, when i was with a lot of energy to do many exercises.
Truth,
What do you think the ROI is at this point on women in the west?
Do you believe that one should geo max and get to countries where women actually need you if you believe that your life would be more fulfilled with children/family?
My opinion is that, especially if you are mid 30s or older, and now have greater finances and wisdom, the west has restricted nearly all access to any real quality women, since they are anti age gaps and so many Americans are fat and don’t age well (women are definitely in this category). The attitude is generally masculine beyond the fact that so few are actually attractive, which makes 6s even minimally attractive as mates.
The ROI is ranging from terrible to horror.
No matter what you do, it’s gambling with the odds against you.
Curiously, just yesterday I overheard a woman in what seemed to be her late 20s or 30s (judging her voice) talking to a young man in his early 20s who was apparently some coworker of hers.
The conversation was about work stuff, but suddenly the woman shifted to dating for some reason and was the blackpill stereotype to a T: she talked about being only interested in dating “handsome” guys regardless of everything else. She never mentioned to appreciate things like, for example, moral/spiritual values and financial stability. She actually mentioned ruthlessly rejecting a random dude in a bar just for being “ugly” despite he seemed fairly wealthy lol.
Obviously all women in my current country of residence (Spain) might not be like that, but so far all what I’ve seen and heard just confirms that sadly that kind of mentality is the new female standard in the West.
I had heard—- argh, si eres de España, puedo relajarme un poco.
He oido historias de terror desde tu pais. O sea, no algo supernaturalizado, pero muchos casos puntuales van a lo mismo. Desde formularios que rellenar para siquiera tener relaciones, hasta leyes anti-hombres, especialmente para el hombre casado. Algunos bromeaban incluso con penalizar al hombre si no abordaba una mujer para directamente casarse, para asi despues quitarle todo durante los juicios de divorcio.
Por aqui en argentina, bueno… Definitivamente no son distintas de otras. Lo que si es que hay problemas mas urgentes que quedar soltero, o siendo mas optimistas, como dicen algunos por aqui “es imposible aburrirse en este pais”
Im from spain as well. We , Spanish girls don’t travel abroad to get pregnant like “germans, Scandinavians, British”, i travel a lot and noticed lots of white women going South America, Africa, to get pregnant of random local guys… I saw at the hostel in Chile and Peru all these blonde young women picking up local guys in the streets
Even if only 40% of the women there are like that, soon it will be 80%. The virus spreads fast. And in Spain I think it’s already at 80% or more. France and Germany could be worse.
Yes, Truth, of course you can tell that we know and you confirm this awful ROI.
Why don’t you opine on more traditional places with higher IQ like the Russias of the world? Of course they have cunning women, but they actually do have sensible, traditional ones as well.
Jose, I studied in Spain a long time ago and have been many times. It’s been a marxist place for years, especially after Franco died. Most of western Europe, quite simply, became Godless. They substituted what made them a functional society for socialism, essentially mammon. It never works out well.
Facer, Argentina is similar. Some promising things but for a poor country, also not very interested in being with good man as opposed to younger men, who are often broke. Smartphones doesn’t help any part of this, worldwide, of course.
Ideologies cross borders with impunity. Nowhere is immune to that and attempts to suppress it often backfire. 400 years ago, most countries were governed by royal families. Today that’s a rare exception. The sands of time provide fundamental shifts more so than any human effort.
Is this the same principle applying to those who think gaining muscle naturally or enhanced will attract more women physically and get them to have more sex ?
Is this the same principle applying to those who think gaining muscle naturally or enhanced will attract more women physically and get them to have more sex ?