The benefits of building muscle dwarf the downsides so overwhelmingly that it should be a no-brainer for any man to start building muscle.
Yet, few men ever attempt strength training in their whole lives.
Here are the common excuses I hear from men about why they don’t start to build muscle:
1. I don’t want to get too big
This is the most common argument I hear against building muscle.
It’s unbelievable how many men have the temerity to say “I don’t want to get too big” with a straight face to dismiss strength training. They talk as if their muscles will uncontrollably start to blow up at the moment they touch a barbell. Their reference point when they utter such a dumb sentence is professional bodybuilders with huge muscles.
Getting too big like professional bodybuilders requires years of rigorous training and copious amounts of steroids.
You will not “accidentally” get big. Even getting moderately big is tough, so stop saying that you don’t want to get too big.
2. I prefer to invest in my brain
I’ve heard enough people say “I prefer to invest in my brain” with a straight face that you would think they spend all their times working on scientific discoveries.
The truth is, it’s just a feel-good excuse to justify their lack of strength. It’s crabs in a bucket mentality.
“It’s difficult to build muscle so let’s badmouth the hardworking and disciplined bodybuilders so that we can feel good without having to put in the work.”
Investing in your brain and investing in your body are not mutually exclusive. Additionally, exercise is proven to improve cognitive function. Strength training is the king of all exercises.
Stop saying that you prefer to invest in your brain because you are not fooling anyone.
3. Bodybuilders are narcissists
I grew up in a leftist family. I am also a graduate of an ivy league university that is notorious for its extreme leftism. As a result, I know very well how leftists think.
Leftists have an utter disdain for anything about strength. As a result, it’s not surprising that the insult “bodybuilders are narcissists obsessed with their bodies” comes from leftists. They see building muscle as an affront to their ideology.
Since the mainstream media is overwhelmingly left-leaning, you hear a lot about the disdain for bodybuilders.
I’ve written extensively about how ideologies suck. Ideologies only benefit their leaders.
Leave the leftist talking points to miserable leftists.
Taking care of your body has nothing to do with narcissism. It’s has everything to do with self-respect, personal responsibility and, discipline.
4. I don’t want to be muscle-bound
There’s a myth that building muscle somehow limits your mobility.
You can see how an utterly dumb claim it is when you consider the fact that muscles are what makes mobility possible in the first place. Bodily motions are achieved through muscular contraction. You literally wouldn’t be able to move without your muscles.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the most valued football player in the world and he is muscular. Ask him if he is bound by his strong muscles.
5. I don’t have good genetics to build muscle
If you read about the history of humanity, you would know that humans are not meant to be muscular. The Neanderthals were more muscular than our ancestors but we wiped them out because muscles are costly in terms of calories and calories were scarce at the stone age.
Being muscular used to be a disadvantage for survival. As a result, the modern human body evolved with a genetic aversion to building muscle. No modern human has good genetics to build muscle.
Successful bodybuilders don’t build muscle because they have superior genetics. They have human genetics which works against them at their muscle-building efforts.
Building muscle isn’t easy for anybody. Bodybuilders work hard, defy their genetic aversion to building muscle, and succeed with their immense willpower and discipline.
Stop using the genetics excuse to justify your inability to build muscle.
What you should have is the determination to defy your genetic conditioning and push through your body’s reluctance to build muscle. Calories aren’t scarce anymore. In our time and age, it’s the opposite. Calories are abundant. People want to speed up their metabolisms to burn more calories. Building muscle accomplishes that for you.
You should work your muscles so hard that you leave your body no chance but to grow muscles. That’s how muscle building is done.
6. Bodybuilders build muscle only to attract women
We already established that leftists shame bodybuilders as shallow narcissists who don’t invest in their brains.
It looks like these shaming tactics didn’t cut it, as there are still men on earth who ignore the leftist talking points and dare to build muscle. So, they invented yet another shaming mechanism which is to accuse bodybuilders of being shallow men who build muscle just to attract women.
If you are careful, you will notice the tacit agreement in their shaming statement that women are attracted to muscles. When you ignore their bullshit and build muscle anyway, their argument will magically evolve into “women are not attracted to muscular men.”. These people are utterly despicable, dishonest rats who hate everything about strength.
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive to the opposite sex. Women employ many strategies to be attractive to men such as applying makeup, wearing high heel shoes, along many other things. Nobody dares to accuse them of being shallow.
But, the moment a man starts doing something for himself, they scream “shallow, narcissist, man-child, creep, etc.”. Nobody shames gay men or women for their attempts at bettering themselves but any mundane act of masculinity is promptly shamed, attacked, and ridiculed. These people are not your friends. They are your enemies. So, ignore their talking points altogether.
Attracting women is one of the reasons I built my muscle mass and I am extremely happy with the results I got.
I wrote extensively about how being muscular makes you attractive to women.
Related: What is The Ideal Male Body Type to Attract Women – An Athletic or a Muscular Build?
Related: Do Girls Like Muscles? – 10 Ways Building Muscle Helps You Get Laid
Second of all, strength training has a wide variety of other benefits than attracting women. Even if building muscles didn’t change my attractiveness to women I would still do it because the benefits of building muscle are too good to ignore.
While I don’t deny its importance, attracting women isn’t the only goal that men have in life. It’s not even a priority.
7. I don’t have money to join the gym or buy supplements and high protein food
Bodyweight training is an excellent way to build muscle and it doesn’t require a gym.
Supplements are grossly overrated. You don’t need supplements to build muscle. Supplements are just that, supplements. They have minimal effect on building muscle. What matters is training, eating, and sleeping right. Everything else is minutiae.
Bodybuilding food doesn’t need to be expensive. Eggs, canned tuna, and chicken meat are all inexpensive types of protein-rich food.
Even when you are too poor to buy eggs, you should look at poorly fed prisoners who make no excuses and build muscle anyway.
8. Building muscle is difficult
If building muscle was easy, you would see all men walking around like Greek statues because every man secretly wants to be muscular.
Yet, truly strong men are rare because building muscle is tough. That’s exactly why you should do it because achieving something difficult builds character and makes you stand out.
Always remember, if it’s easy it’s not worth doing.
9. It’s too late to build muscle, I am not young anymore
I built my six-pack abs after the age of 37. I switched to lifting weights and added pounds of muscle to my frame after 40.
Look at these cute old ladies who are osteoporosis patients lifting weights and come back at me to say you are too old to build muscle:
10. Building muscle is good but your muscles will turn to fat the moment you stop training
Building muscle is tough but maintaining it is easy because of a magical phenomenon called muscle memory.
Of course, you will lose strength if you completely quit training but when you get back to training you will quickly build your muscle mass back thanks to muscle memory.
Muscles turning into fat is a myth. Just like it’s impossible to turn the fat tissue into muscle tissue, it’s also impossible to turn the muscle tissue into fat tissue.
11. I am scared to get injured
Bodybuilding has a lower injury rate than popular team sports and a harmless-looking sport like running.
The injury rate at bodybuilding is low because you incrementally increase the weights you are lifting. If you managed to bench press 150 pounds at today’s training, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get injured by trying to lift 152,5 pounds at your next training session.
12. I am only interested in exercise because I want to lose weight, not build muscle
Strength training is the best strategy to lose fat because muscles are fat-burning machines.
When you do aerobic exercise, you only burn calories when you are exercising.
On the other hand, when you do strength training, you burn calories for 7 days and 24 hours.
13. You need steroids to build muscle
You can build a noticeable muscle mass without steroids.
The Greek statues depict muscular men of their times when steroids weren’t invented. Sure, you won’t get insanely big like professional bodybuilders but it’s definitely possible to get big without steroids.
14. I don’t have time to build muscle
When I was training to build six-pack abs, my training times were getting shorter and shorter as the weeks went by and I got in better form. I call this the beauty of bodyweight training.
At the first couple of weeks, I was training 3-4 hours a week. As got in better shape, my weekly training time came under 2 hours a week. This happens because progressive overload at bodyweight training is achieved by doing the same set of exercises in a shorter time.
After I switched to lifting weights, my training time was fixed because progressive overload at weight training is achieved by lifting heavier weights. Still, one weightlifting session is 45 minutes on average, which amounts to only 3 hours a week.
Everybody can spare weekly 2-3 hours of time to train, so your “I don’t have time to train” excuse doesn’t hold water.
Related: Bodyweight Training vs Weightlifting
Conclusion
Building muscle is an extremely rewarding endeavor. Strength training is uncontested in terms of health, self-esteem, sex, and other indirect benefits.
If you find yourself resorting to the above excuses not to build muscle, be aware that you are only fooling yourself.
Stop the excuses and start building muscle. You will thank yourself later.
I recommend starting with bodyweight training and switching to lifting weights after you build your muscular foundation.