“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder…”

“…But nobody wana lift no heavy ass weights”, the immortal words of the GOAT of bodybuilding, Ronnie Coleman. Never has the phrase been more fitting now that we offer the sculpt program, and I have to say, I don’t blame those that have dipped their toe into this world and decided it wasn’t for them, because the idea of getting strong and building some muscle does sound very inviting, but once your in, and you see how slow the progress can be, as well as how hard the work that has to be put in to achieve this minimal progress, is, on top of the mind fuck of putting weight on after losing fat in accountability, it can be easy to change your mind. So, this blog is for anyone who is considering joining the Sculpt, read this before you make the leap.

This is absolutely my most favourite group, I just loveeeeee weights, or at least the results that lifting weights gives me, because truth be told, I don’t always love lifting weights, in short, building muscle is HARD! It has taken me 20 years to get to where I am now, progress can be very slow! In accountability, progress is instant, you have a good week and you see the changes on the scales straight away, a good week in sculpt doesn’t really look any different to any other, which is why the first thing I tell anyone who joins the sculpt is, it’ll take 6 weeks for you to notice a difference, 8 weeks for your friends to notice a difference, and 12 weeks for the rest of the world to notice. But this can be subjective also, because if you will only notice the difference physically if you are lean enough to begin with to see these new gains! If your carrying a little extra fat, it might take much longer, so first piece of advice is, you have to be in this for the long haul. You also can’t just dip in and out, in the beginning I ask that you get in the gym at least 3 times a week, and there should be no weeks off especially in the first 12 week phase. If your tired, or don’t feel like going to gym, you better get your arse up and go anyway, you can sit on your arse and lose weight if your diet is correct, you can’t stay sat on your arse and just expect muscle to appear because you’re eating more.

This leads me on to the next part, YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO EAT MORE! Now I know what you sneaky buggers in accountability are like, if you secretly go off plan, you tend to just undereat the next day to account for it, in sculpt if you over eat, you better still be over your calorie goal the next day or we will be having words! The calories become a minimum in stead of a maximum, as you need to eat more to build muscle, unfortunately it doesn’t just appear from thing air, which means that also, your weight is going to go up! How much though, will be up to you. If you like a binge on a weekend, you will very quickly put on extra fat in the sculpt, which is what we don’t want! I want to see sculpt members build lean muscle, by eating quality food, and being consistent with your training. We have lost a few members to this, after concentrating on getting your weight down for so long, its not always easy to see the scales go the other way. So my second piece of advice is, after you’ve lost weight, lets try and maintain the weight for around 12 weeks so you are absolutely certain you can keep eating these same foods and it wasn’t just a race to get the weight off, if your at the end of you weight loss journey, you should go and read “life after weight loss” first. Be comfortable in your own skin before you sculpt.

Now lifting weights very much must become a lifestyle that you embrace, some of you do race to get the weight off, then think your done, and just kind of wing it after, you certainly can’t wing this. Once you stop lifting weights, the muscles you’ve built will unfortunately fade away, if you don’t use them, you lose them, so make it your life if you want to keep the muscle you will have to worked so hard for! A lot of things can exacerbate this muscle loss, alcohol for example will put a major barrier in the way of your progress, and my wife is a very good example of this. At the point of writing this, she has gone 8 weeks without touching a drop of alcohol, and her gains have been HUGE this week, as a side note, she is 8 months in, and is only just starting to be happy with the progress that is being made. The second example is of course running, if you love running, then you should always keep running, but my third piece of advice to you is, pick a goal and go for it full force. In a 2016 study, results showed that running distances of 5km and over drastically inhibited the growth of leg muscles, keep in mind, 5km was the shortest distance ran in this study, and it still showed leg muscles were damaged and size reduced. So, if you keep running too much, you’re fighting against your own training, and life will be made a lot harder for you! This doesn’t mean, stop cardio, everyone should always do cardio, HIIT style workouts, exercise classes and sprints have been shown to HELP build muscle, but keep it short and impactful!

Finally, the fourth piece of advice I’m going to give, is you must be willing to listen to advice and take instructions. I am very hard on the ladies in the sculpt group, and I am a perfectionist. If you come into the sculpt, you can pretty much expect to be told everything you do is wrong for a very long time, and praise is few and far between. This isn’t because I don’t think your doing well, but because I want you to be safe when lifting, and I want you to push yourself and see results, I am not happy with you just going through the motions and wasting everyone’s time. If I think you aren’t doing something right, I’m going to call you out on it, and if you the type of person who’s going to have a little bitch fit because “the big bald man was mean to me”, maybe the sculpt isn’t for you.

The benefits of lifting weights can’t be beaten by any other form of exercise, for information on this, read “weights vs cardio” and I give a better break down on what you can hope to achieve if you stick around. I am not writing this to put anyone off, I am writing this because I don’t want people to start who maybe don’t have the full picture of what is involved, and then feel like a failure because you want to leave. You are not a failure because your goals don’t align with the sculpt group, you just would prefer to do something else to stay fit, and that’s great, because what we really want is to get people moving and have everyone as healthy as they can be, if you enjoy it, go for it!

Big love,

Aaron “The people’s PT” Lowe

Ps. if you still aren’t sure, I’m more then happy for you to come have a chat in person