This’ll be a fun post.
I’ve decided to put together an article cataloging my own progress down through the years.
Ever notice that other gurus on the web sell a new training program every few months, but yet their own bodies aren’t getting any better!? What’s up with that? Plus, if their last training was so awesome, why the need for the new one??
In this post I’ve included some pics from when I was really young, way before I ever picked up a weight.
Why?
Because sometimes people say I must have great genetics – I DON’T! I never did! (list of genetic factors here)
The truth is I have crap genetics. I was always a skinny guy – always. Just because I don’t skip workouts, I log the results of every single workout, and my diet is good, don’t put my results down to genetics.
There is a scale of…
ECTOMORPH<——–>MESOMORPH<——–>ENDOMORPH
…and I would say I am closer to ectomorph on the ecto-to-meso side of things.
Any results I’ve experienced are the result of consistent hard work.
With that in mind, here are some very early pics. I had to search through old pics at my mother’s house for these. Turns out I wore a Manchester United top virtually all the time when I was a kid lol.
I’m in the middle holding the bag
This is me at 19 years old. By this stage I had actually tried lifting for about 6 months before quitting. I was also eating more than I needed as I wanted to gain some weight and didn’t really mind at that time if some of it was fat. You can’t really see, but I had a gut growing here. My arms weren’t growing, but my belly was lol. But I was the type of 19 yr old kid that lost weight if I wasn’t actually trying to gain it.
Pulling a sad face outside a Safeway in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. I can’t remember what was up with the face lol
At a July 4th celebration party in Washington D.C. (same year as above)
Here I am at 23 with my little girl, who was only a few weeks old at the time. I was quite thin, but I was training here. I think this might have been around the time I was using the Max-OT workout.
Feeding my wee sweetheart at age 23
Here I am about age 24. I have a gut you can’t really see, and I was still training, trying different things, and eating like a horse (because I believed that “you have to eat big to get big” nonsense). The training wasn’t really getting me where I wanted and I was slowly getting fatter.
It was a year or 2 of similar results to the above which started the research about how to shed fat without having to lose muscle in the process. My gut was getting out of hand and I really needed to shift it!
While I didn’t know it at the time, this research became the basis for the book Total Six Pack Abs.
Here are some pics which are from that period, I believe around early 2007, maybe 2-3 years after those pics above.
At the same time as researching efficient fat loss, I had looked into as many studies and papers into how muscle is actually built. Again, I didn’t realize it at the time, but all of this later became the Targeted Hypertrophy Training program, which has went on to transform thousands of people’s bodies all over the world.
So after getting THT nailed down, here is a pic from 2009
Here’s one from 2010
And here’s another from late 2011
And here are my latest pics from early 2014…
Great genetics? I don’t think so. It’s years and years of never quitting, never missing a workout (unless I was ill), and staying on top of my diet.
Quite literally, if I can do it, you can.
If you download THT training, do it properly, log each workout, and keep making progress, you really can’t go wrong. It’s a no-fail system…and it’s FREE!
Enter your details below for your copy…
The way I see it, there are only 3 steps to getting anything you want out of life.
(1) Decide what you want. Most people don’t even take this step. Be specific and write it down.
(2) Find out the price that needs to be paid in order to get there (the effort, the skills required etc.).
(3) Resolve to PAY THAT PRICE – Period!
If you can do that, there’s really nothing stopping you. In fact, you’ll realize that the only person who ever really stopped you was yourself.
A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins.
Train With Intensity!
Mark
Inspiring Mark, thank you! I’ve read a number of articles arguing strongly against genetic influence, and that anyone can gain muscle and lose fat with hard work and sensible nutrition. How much emphasis do you place on genetics?
Very inspiring Mark. Many thanks for posting!
THIS MAKES ME WANNA….TRAIN!!
Mark,
Awesome pics that give me hope; I’m currently 5’10 175 lbs around 15-16% bodyfat with a goal of looking like you did in 2010.
Do you have a preferred sequence of your programs? For example, THT before TSPA or vice versa OR am I getting caught up in small details?
Thanks for the great blog!
Great post Mark. You were the same as me growing up, only I was always in a Liverpool top! lol 😉
Cool pics Mark! Im the opposite as you always trying to lose fat! Only time I was close to u I was 85 kg at 21 and fit! 20 yrs later and starting again for the thousand time. Thanks for being am inspiration to so many of us!
It looks like im n the same boat i been training for 9yrs on n off now i been doing for the past year ever day i cant seem to’ get my diet right
Wow, Mark!! That is what hard work and determination cam do for you. I thought I knew how to train, but I wasn’t even skimming the surface. Thanks to your THT and TPSA, I am in the best shape of my life. Thank you so much for all your hard work into putting these programs together. 🙂
You continually inspire me! Thanks for all the work you do developing your programs and keeping us readers informed! I’m currently building another baby. Looking forward to getting back on the stage in a couple years. You help me stay focused.
Nice work Mark. Any supps?
@Scott. Yes it’s true that everyone can build muscle and lose fat with a good training program and sensible diet. However, genetics do play a very fundamental role. For example, the vast majority of men could never be professional bodybuilders no matter what they do. If you’ve low muscle fiber density or poor neuro-muscular efficiency, these works will hamper your gains. There are 7 genetic factors that people should be aware of, you can read about them here
https://musclehack.com/can-we-all-be-as-big-as-arnold-bodybuilding-genetics-explained/
However, my advice to people is to always aim to maximize YOUR potential. Forget everyone else, and make your body look the best that it can. That was my aim when I got into this and I think it served me well.
@Neal. It depends on the person’s body fat levels. I find that guys that are over about 18% body fat want to get rid of it. So to prioritize fat loss, I recommend TSPA. However, you train your whole body just as hard on TSPA as on THT, so you’ll still make progress in the gym. And if they’re a newbie, they experience simultaneous fat loss with muscle size gains. It’s really a matter of choice, of what you’d like to prioritize, but there’s no right and wrong answer.
@Martin @Sean Brown THANKS! 🙂
@Myra. Aw wow, another wee one on the way 😀 Fantastic. I’ll keep knocking out the good work and you get back at it when you can. All the best to you and yours.
@Seb. Whey, creatine, glutamine. Pre-workout I make my own from caffeine, AAKG, and beta-alanine. You can get the recipe for that cocktail here https://musclehack.com/cheapest-no-xplode-ever-how-to-make-your-own/