Are you thinking that taking a weight loss supplement is going to make you look like a fitness model? Really?
The advertisements in fitness magazines would have you think that looking like the fitness model were as easy as proper supplementation and some cardio. Oh young grasshopper…it isn’t that easy.
It is true that fitness models take supplements, but they only supplement, or add to, a lifestyle that revolves around a specific look. These are not women looking to lose ‘baby weight.’ Similarly, the women in the magazines didn’t get there by going half-steam in the gym.
Story time:
I was in the gym, hard to believe I know, and there was a women working out in the weight room, awesome…at first. She was what I would consider ‘average,’ had a few pounds to lose and no more than a fleeting sign of muscle tone.
She was carrying around a issue of Oxygen as she made her way to the squat rack. Double checking the article she set the magazine down and attempted to pick up the empty bar already in the rack. Acting like the 45-lb bar were closer to 200-lbs, she put it down and left her post to get a lighter bar…the 15-lb bar.
She then proceeded to try and mimic the exercise in the article: stiff leg dead-lifts. She made a decent attempt. Putting the bar down she sits down and starts flipping through the magazine…some time later she does another set.
You are probably wondering where this is going. Here it is: People like that are wasting their time and taking up space. What was she accomplishing? Nothing…she might as well have kept the magazine in her hands and gone through the motions. A 15-lb bar stiff legged dead lift on an adult who isn’t rehabbing is pointless; It is just a stretch. Go to the stretch area and leave the squat rack open for someone to squat in.
My problem is not with people who are not strong. It is with people who go through the motions and wonder why they don’t look like the woman in the article they’re following. The workouts from magazines like Oxygen are great and can be super effective, but you have to be willing to work hard if you want them to work for you.
To look like a fitness model you have to be willing to sweat, you have to be willing to push weight (you are not going to look like a bodybuilder), you have to eat perfect and get sore…a lot. Oh ya and your social life just got a lot stricter. Happy hour is less happy and now you really do have to spit out the wine at tastings.
I get asked a lot “what do I need to do to look like you.” My response is generally “I wouldn’t wish what I go through on anyone.” While I have fine tuned it and live a more normal life than my early days of competing, the fact is for me to go anywhere there is a cooler involved, a gallon of water and a hefty amount of vitamin’s, minerals and protein supplements. I work out at least five days a week and even when I’m on vacation.
Moral of the story is if you want to look like women in the magazines, you have to train like them. Just because they aren’t a sweaty mess in the picture, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be. Grab a weight that is going to do something and shut-up and train.