I am a national level bodybuilder, but I am not by any means a "mass monster" I compete as a middleweight/welterweight, and I'm 5'5....yet people are always walking up asking me questions about steriods. What if I walked up to every out of shape person in the gym and asked: "do you eat alot of gravy"...oh I'm sorry I just assumed you couldn't get THAT out of shape unless you drank gravy all the time. I would be an asshole right....or If I walked up to some obviously weak guy who was struggling with minimal weight and asked him if he was talking estrogen pills....oh I'm sorry I just assumed that you could not have been so weak naturally. People think that there is nothing more to it than taking a shot in the ass and working out every once in awhile. They don't see competitors doing two hours of cardio 6 days a week or eating 8 meal a day that taste like fucking cardboard or working out to the point of projectile vommiting..I own a personal training studio and work with clients 10-12 hours a day, and then have to get in two hours of cardio+weight training+8 solid meals. I wake up at 4 a.m. every day and finish my day around 8p.m. The average person could not handle this for 1 week, yet they still assume it's nothing more than taking a little juice that seperates you from them.
You make a great point. I can relate to you a lot, not in terms of height or weight (I am taller and bigger) but with what you are thinking / feeling. Unfortunately, the general public seems to be clueless when it comes to gauging a person's (relative) size and strength levels and this is most probably due to how few guys there are out there that are really built. The average person seems to have a certain cut -off point, sometimes as low as someone being over 190 or 200 lbs (for guys under 5'10). Anyone bigger than that, having a pair of 18" arms or above is 'on steroids'
I train in a University gym which is pretty good - they let you use chalk, the power racks are empty most of the times (except when some moron does quarter squats with a 45 lb plate on each side, but that's another story altogether) and they let you do your thing. I myself train the old-school way - basic, heavy free-weight compound movements with a bit of machines and cables thrown in at the end. The thing that gets to me is that how out of ALL the students and others who train (if it can be called that), apart from myself and a couple of other powerlifters, NO ONE has the slightest inkling of what hard work is.
Most of the students think that the reason they dont make gains is because they have an ineffective programme - oh brother
. They always do cables and machines and swiss ball stuff - anything that makes the workout easier. And they ALL TALK, ALL THE TIME - every f*cking one of them
. I've got nothing against people doing what they want, but it does annoy me when they see me work my butt off and bring up the 'steroid' remark and the associated gestures - making an injecting symbol with their hands, shaking their heads etc (BTW, I am a natty 100 %
)
I know that almost all of them are just plain mediocrities and the one thing they all have in common is the way they hate anyone with a passion (in this case, for lifting). You can tell they know they will never be able to match your passion and thus come up with every lame thing to try and make themselves feel better. Of course, I don't care what they think and in fact, take it as a compliment, but it would be good if people didn't try to undermine / negate your hard work - it's like you bust your butt and scored an A in an exam, only to have people say that you did that only because you cheated.
Just had to vent, sorry. And NPCOK - great to see you being focused on what you are doing mate. Keep it up. In the end, even if no-one understood / appreciated you, you know that you gained self-respect (and respect from guys like me) and trust me, all the adoration and appreciation of those mediocrities won't equal that
