“You should do more biceps to balance out your triceps.”

“You should do more calves.

“You should do more upper and inner pecs.”

All suggestions made by idiots.

I used to overhear such recommendations everyday.

I’ve known Olympia contenders who had “weak calves” (relatively speaking). What do you think they “worked harder” than anything else in every conceivable manner? Yep! Calves!

Conversely most of them didn’t even bother to work their “best” areas!

Q: “What do you do for arms?” A: “I really don’t work them until about a month before the Olympia. I get enough arms with chest and back.”

WTF?!!!!!!

I know the world thinks it can overcome DNA, but it can’t. Don’t get me wrong!!! Genetics is not an excuse for not “working hard” (i.e., appropriate effort within one’s individual tolerances, which can and must be extremely high for many individuals). But why do we believe one has exceeded his/her genetic window of opportunity when we observe a previously unfathomable level of achievement? They are in fact exhibiting a point within their window! They may not have recognized the expanse of the window when living a former/lesser ability level, but no one has ever been bigger or faster than they could be. When they are bigger and faster than anyone prior, they have not exceeded their genetics through hard work… they have displayed the expanse of their genetics through hard work! Quite simply, if hard work was the only factor, literally anyone could achieve any physical level in any physical endeavor. There would no such thing as those built for basketball vs. football vs. marathons vs sprinting vs bodybuilding.

I have known too many people with crazy-awesome genetic ability that never learned to work hard because initially it was required of them. They were often surpassed by those with somewhat lesser genetics who did work hard. But if the gifted had busted ass…

Be more observant of a greater number of people in general. There are males and females sporting monstrous calves who have never seen a gym. There appears to be far more people with no calves who have tried everything. It’s no different than hair, eye color, height, or anything else. We are just deceived because while those other traits are not “trainable”, muscle typically responds to degrees of contractile challenge by increasing in ability to meet the new requirements or demand… with one side effect commonly being a degree of hypertrophy.

As a result of muscle being somewhat malleable, we have childishly come to believe that there is no end to this opportunity. And because some have a window of opportunity that exceeds that of those coming before them, we believe they must have exceeded their own DNA window. While we choose to limit our use of the word “exceptional” to the people and achievements things we think are “great”, we ignore the root word “exception”, i.e., “a case to which a rule does not apply” – Merriam-Webster.

Don’t stop working for the goal. Commitment, diligence, and perseverance are among the keys. Paint a panoramic mental picture of what not only the goal looks like, but include what it smells, sounds, and feels like. But injury and over-training produced by not monitoring the fine line between hard work and intolerance will certainly not allow you to explore the expanse of your window of opportunity.