- So if I look at my photos from 2016 and I compare my
physique from back then to have a look now,
it's very obvious that I haven't made that much progress
over the last few years.
And I do get this comment sometimes people wondering
Mario, why you haven't changed that much?
Are you still making any progress?
And I think this is a very valid point,
and this is why in this video,
I'm going to share with you why I haven't been building
that much muscle and give you a very unique perspective
on how things may go for you as well
on your fitness journey.
And this is very important,
especially if you're someone who is more data-driven
and goal focused like I am,
because I've been doing this since 2011,
so over 10 years now.
And I think you need to know what to expect
and need to know the honest truth
about building muscle naturally.
So without any further ado, let's dive right into it.
So the first reason why I haven't built that much muscle
is because of simply hit a point of diminishing returns.
And most natural lifters will experience this after
about five years of serious consistent training.
And I do really mean serious because there's a lot of people
that have been lifting for 10 even 15 years.
But if you look at what they're actually doing,
they've only been very intentional and focus
for about a year.
So they really haven't been structured
for the rest of the time. They really didn't have goals.
They didn't take it as seriously,
and they haven't made that much progress.
So after about five years of really doing this seriously,
you will reach what I would call your base physique.
And that physique will not change a lot moving forward.
Don't get me wrong, you will still see some improvements,
but to an untrained eye, they might not be able to tell.
I mean, realistically, can someone tell a 5%
difference in your chest or 10% bigger calves?
Probably not.
Now you can notice a difference in your performance.
You're getting stronger,
you're fitting better in your clothes.
Maybe you're at a higher body weight,
but you're much leaner.
So all those things are important.
And for you, they keep you motivated,
but we can't really expect those same dramatic differences
as we did in the first few years.
Now, of course, in social media, you will see,
people will be lifting for 10 years,
suddenly achieve an amazing transformation
that year they're bigger, they're leaner,
but they usually fail to disclose that they've taken
some vitamin S on the side,
and that can really skew the perceptions and the
expectations of natural lifters.
As a natural lifter after those first five years,
it's more about refinement.
It's more about that maturity of your physique.
Yes, you are getting better,
but it really does take time for gains to accumulate.
And this is where it's so important for us to commit
to the long call, be consistent, be patient,
to really let those gains reach a point
where they really do show a difference.
Now, the second reason why I haven't gained that much muscle
is because I spent most of my fitness journey focused on
staying very lean.
And first of all, I do wanna say that I like
how my body looks and how I feel
in that 10 to 15% body fat range.
And I've actually stayed closer to the lower end
of that range for most of these years,
which meant in practice that when I was deciding
between a lean bulk and trying to gain weight
and gain muscle and staying lean, I picked staying lean.
So I didn't really do that many gaining phases
over these years.
And for reference I'm five foot 10.
So my shredded look is actually below 170 pounds.
So blow 77 kg.
And only the last few years have I started lean bulking
and I went up to 182 pounds was that on 82 kg.
And I did notice improvements with my physique
and I do suspect moving forward if I really want
to optimize for maximum muscle growth and kind of getting as
many gains as possible that we'll actually have to gain to a
higher body weight, maybe around 188 pounds, 85 kg,
even if it comes at the expense of gaining some extra body
fat in order for me to really break through that ceiling.
And this is something that I've been thinking about
for a while now.
Let me know in the comments below as well.
If you'd like me to see me go up to that body weight,
also while you're down there,
make sure to hit that like button as well.
And really the goal here is to make that quote-unquote
shredded look, to be higher than 170 pounds, 77 kg.
And would happen if I were to gain a little bit more muscle.
So if you're someone like me,
who's been really focused on staying lean
for many, many years.
Maybe you want to consider doing a lean bulk
so you can put on a little bit more muscle.
So next time you do a fat loss phase.
You'll be able to get your desired body fat percentage.
And the look you want at a higher body weight
with a better physique.
Now, this brings me to the third reason
why I wasn't building that much muscle.
And that's because I didn't always make the lifestyle
sacrifices required to do so.
Don't get me wrong.
I love training the gym.
I could spend hours in the gym every single day,
wouldn't bother me.
And fitness has been a permanent part of my life,
and I've been consistent without any kind of breaks,
but it wasn't always a top priority.
And you might be wondering Mario, what do you mean?
You're making videos about fitness on YouTube,
talking about building muscle, getting lean,
efficiency, maximizing results?
Yes, you're right.
But my life philosophy is one of improvement
and balance across the board.
And this includes health and fitness,
but also business relationships
and overall personal development.
And I do believe that we all have to be able
to objectively analyze,
where do we stand across those areas?
So if your fitness is currently average,
five out of 10 or 2 out of 10,
which is below average and you're out of shape.
And then your business is 8 out of 10.
Your relationships are 8 out of 10.
Well, clearly fitness should be your top priority.
You should be investing time, effort, energy,
and focus there to bring that up to a higher level.
In my case, after about four or five years
on a fitness journey,
I reached a level that I was very, very happy with it.
That was about eight out of 10.
And I realized that gaining a couple of pounds more muscle
wouldn't really improve my life quality at all.
So I made a couple of strategic decisions
to start focusing more on other areas of my life
and redirecting my energy there.
One of those decisions was to become a digital nomad
and travel the world.
I've been to more than 50 countries now.
And I've been disrupting my routine every couple of months.
Is that the best for muscle gains and really getting
the most growth?
No, but it's amazing for me to grow as a person,
has been one of the best decisions that I've ever made.
And these days also, as an entrepreneur,
I work 10 to 12 hours a day.
Sometimes I cut my workouts short to about 30 minutes.
Is that the best for maximizing muscle growth?
No, but it's a requirement and a sacrifice
I make to actually work on other priorities as well.
So, so it is important to understand your limitations.
We all have 168 hours a week.
There's only so much you can do at the same time.
Does that mean that I'm not progressing with my fitness?
No, but I could probably be progressing faster
if I were to neglect everything else.
But is that really what I should be doing?
I mean, a lot of people in great shape
are hiding in the gym and ignoring everything else in life
that's falling apart.
That's not the solution.
The same thing is that there are a lot of people hiding in
their business and inventing busy work and doing stuff
that doesn't really matter at all and ignoring
their health and fitness.
And now this is definitely falling apart,
which is eventually going to catch up on them.
So at the end of the day,
it's about understanding that we have to look at
the whole life.
And this is about having healthy lifestyle,
which includes all those areas.
And the cool thing about fitness is once you get it to a
certain level, it's much easier to maintain it,
then it's to push it to the next level.
So you can reach a level of fitness that you're really
happy with and then focus now your energy into other areas,
and then just simply maintain this.
And at the end of the day,
it's not about just having the best physique ever.
It's about having the best life you can have.
And it's about becoming the best version of yourself.
And what's going to help you with that is making sure we hit
that subscribe button below and then notifications
by hitting the bell icon as well,
details for coaching.
If you want to work with me on description below,
I'm also going to leave a very important video here
for you at the end.
So check out that video
and I'm going to see you right there.