An Art

Weightlifting is such a beautiful sport when done right, where using weights to control ones movement under stress while maintaining perfect form is the basis of the discipline.

It is in a way an art, showing what the human body is capable off in the same way calisthenics makes use of our muscles compounded strength to bend, move and stay in different poses and forms, weightlifting makes us understand our own body's strengths and limits and how to surpass them and at the same time we are as a sculptor sculpting our own bodies, making a beautiful sculpture of muscle, that is all in harmony.

We also can enjoy the beauty of human adaptability, we as human when put under stress grow stronger and bigger to match the stress accordingly, this is the true beauty of adaptability!

More than meets the eye

Then the other part of weightlifting comes into play, which happens not in the gym but in the kitchen, this part, which dare I say is the most important one, is way harder than the discipline of weightlifting itself.

For muscle to grow, our body needs all the necessary macro-nutrients, from carbs to protein. All macro-nutrients are important in order to see gains but the most important one for muscle growth is protein. Muscles are made out of protein, so when we put our muscles under stress small fissures appear on them. Those micro-fissures are the starting points of muscle growth, our body will then use it stored protein to repair those fissures, muscle growth is a byproduct of this process, after those fissures are repaired, the muscle will be stronger than it was before. So making sure we have enough protein for our body to repair our muscles is extremely important!

Okay, how do we know how much protein we need? Well, you just need to do some math to know the amount of protein: 1.25 (sedentary) to 2.1 (weightlifting) x body-weight = protein intake. Okay simple enough! But then we need to know the eating windows, the protein ingestion time, the number of calories necessary for a bulk or a fast, then we also need to take into account the amount of macro-nutrients we need.

We need to track all of this information and make sure we don't forget it, plus all of this information changes dynamically with the person body, if the person is losing weight every calculation changes accordingly... So we never have a moment of respite. This is truly more than a physical sport, it is also a mental one, one where planning and organizing is extremely important in order to see improvements and to have as much control in sculpting our own body, thus we must use our mind if we want to perform well and not stagnate.