You spend the whole thing yelling at people for overcomplicating it and then drop a routine with clamshell openings and mule kickbacks. That is the same showing off, just on a cable machine. Keep it simple means keep it simple. You wanted to look good, fine, honest enough. But one hand pushups because they look cool is the tell. Anything fancier than the basic work is advertising, and advertising gets you found out. Your hands were down the whole article and you never noticed.
Can you admit what you're actually training for?
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When I started training seriously, the goal was to look like Christian Bale in Batman Begins. It was simple, I wanted to look good and I wanted to get laid. I was 20 years ago, when I was 14. I didn't over-complicate it, I didn't want athletic performance, cardiovascular health, longevity, mobility or any of the fitness buzzwords from 2026. I just wanted to look good. I feel the majority, if not practically all of us want the same, but now we go through complicated rituals to mask it...
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You spend the whole thing yelling at people for overcomplicating it and then drop a routine with clamshell openings and mule kickbacks. That is the same showing off, just on a cable machine. Keep it simple means keep it simple. You wanted to look good, fi
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When I started training seriously, the goal was to look like Christian Bale in Batman Begins. It was simple, I wanted to look good and I wanted to get laid. I was 20 years ago, when I was 14. I didn't over-complicate it, I didn't want athletic performance, cardiovascular health, longevity, mobility or any of the fitness buzzwords from 2026. I just wanted to look good. I feel the majority, if not practically all of us want the same, but now we go through complicated rituals to mask it so we don't have to say it.
Now I see teenagers having to pursue functional fitness, mobility work, pre-hab (lol), carryover exercises and what not. And funny enough, it doesn't help them look good nor is it that functional after all. Maybe one of the Starting Strengths fanboys wanna share a personal story where they had to squat a 200 lbs weight on their back? Or a deadlift a fridge? Yes, I didn't think so either. You know what gives up first when you carry your Costco boxes? Your biceps and grip, isn't it? Maybe some curls? Maybe some wrist curls too? And when you carry grocery bags? Aren't your delts burning? Maybe some, god forbid, lateral shoulder raises like those bodybuilders you make fun of?
Online fitness industry just wants to sell you courses, books and trainings
The first take is complexity. Periodization schemes, conjugate debates, hypertrophy protocols with precise tempos, recovery add-ons, functional training, carryover, pre-hab... Are you in the Olympics and do you have a team of nutritionists, trainers, masseurs... taking care of everything in your life? No? Then drop it, you have a job and a family to think of, focus your mind on that and just do Arnold's bodybuilding routine, or any other bodybuilders really. Take it a bit easier, you're not on steroids to recover fast, and you'll be good. Most of it gets sold to people who want to look different and are being handed a system that makes them feel scientific instead, when they're just overcomplicating lifting. It's just lifting heavy shit and putting it back down, how many books on it do you really need?
The second take, funny enough, is minimalism. Squat, deadlift, press, eat enough protein, stop whining. The minimalist model: get strong in these lifts and your body will look strong and, somehow, muscles that are not even involved in these lifts will grow too due to "hormonal changes". Yes sure. Do squats, bench and deadlifts for 10 months and tell me how exactly will your lats, abs and delts going to grow... Take a look at powerlifters that only do powerlifting, do they really look the way you want to look? And do you feel they can just sprint without breaking anything? Or climb, or ski, or play tennis or whatever? Wasn't it functional? Wasn't there a carryover? Now, I'm sure there's some, that, on top of the 3 powerlifting lifts they also do bodybuilding and look and function fine. But that is the point I'm making, you need variety of movements, you need to go through all range of movements, in all angles, and get your body strong overall. We could say you're building your body...
That is why bodybuilding is perfect for every day people. The useful core of bodybuilding, at least to me, is simple: look at the body you actually have, decide what you want it to become, identify what is underdeveloped, and train that directly. Often is for visual goals, which are fine, and often for movement goals, which is also fine. Bodybuilding ends up being much more functional than expected, since, when done correctly, it takes all your muscles through all their ranges of movement and angles, which is what you need for a strong body. If you want broader shoulders, train shoulders. If you want arms that look right and carry weight well, train them. If you want a physique that looks capable in clothes and out of them, train for that instead of pretending you are really chasing some more respectable abstract goal.
This obsession with pre-hab, specially shoulder rotator cuffs, for example. I never saw it in gyms 10-15 years ago and now suddenly there's always someone doing some rotator cuff exercises to rehab. Well, if instead of functional training and a subset of powerlifting exercises you did all you'd have strong rotator cuffs just from pullups, lateral raises and their variants, t-rows and many others. But no, you had to deadlift like a human forklift for 3 years and mess up your shoulders.
I think you'd do yourself a favor recognizing that you just wanted to look good. With just a bit of thought, looking good does end up having you function good too as long as you don't get into needles. You need fewer layers of complexity, no fitness gurus, no subscriptions , no ebooks and just a 80s bodybuilding program and a good diet. It's just lifting heavy shit and putting it back down, in different ways. Effective training is not easy, but it is simple as hell. Train all your muscles, heavy, and rest.
Where to start?
I'm not selling you anything, I don't have books nor affiliate programs and this started as just a rant. Here's a workout schedule for the week. Took me 10 min to design and it works the entire body. Works for my goals, makes me look good and makes me stay strong to play and sprint with my son. That's about all I need.
Monday: Back, abs and chest
2x10 Chest flies cable + Reverse flies (Antagonist Superset)
2x10L Lateral abs rotation (Mostly Sprint specific, you can substitute with another abs exercise if you wish)
2x10L Rows with dumbells
2x10L Lateral side bends on roman chair
2x10L Chin-ups + dips (Antagonist Superset)
2x10 Wrist curls + Reverse Wrist Curls (Antagonist Superset)
Wednesday: Legs
2x10L Bulgarian split squat
2x10 Straight leg deadlift
1x Pistol Squats ( Sprinting specific, you can skip if you wish and just do more Split squats)
1X10L Hip Flexor Raises on Cable
1x10L Seated Hamstring curls
1X10L Leg abductor on Cable
1x15L Mule kickbacks
1x10L Clamshell openings
2x Calves Raises (
1x10L Hip drop (Sprint specific, you can skip if you wish)
Friday: Shoulders and arms
2x10 Shoulder Lateral raises + Chin-ups
2x8 Military press + 2x15 Abs crunches
2x10 Face pulls + 2x10 Triceps overhead extensions
2x10 Upright row + L-sit leg raises
2x10L Rear delts, on cable
2x10L One hand pushups (I love looking cool doing them)
Do you need to follow this routine as is?
No. Maybe use it to start if you've never been in a gym, then learn and just build your own. Read Arnold's encyclopedia of bodybuilding to get some exercise ideas and use some basic guidelines:
Workout really hard for 1 hour, and leave 1 full day of rest before next workout, you're not on steroids, you don't recover fast. It's the recovery that counts, not workout. Working out more will make you workout LESS hard in each session
Ideally, squeeze the leg day in between those 2 upper body days so you maximize recovery.
Antagonist super sets are really a great way to save time, keep your heart rate up during workouts and use time efficiently. Use them whenever you can, usually when exercises are no unilateral. For leg day, you usually want to fully rest and maybe do some gentle stretching in between sets instead of doing super-sets because leg exercises are very tiring.
Time under tension is king. In general, you want to hold the weight as much as you can and not do fast, explosive movement, but rather control the weight all the time. For example, Kettlebell exercises (Swings, Snatches, Cleans) are great for cardio and explosiveness, but you get little muscle growth out of them since you're not holding the weight under tension most of the time.
Movement range is queen. Prefer to move through the entire range of a movement to get some flexibility and mobility gains too without having to do anything about it. Ass to grass squats with lower weight, pullups that stretch all the way down, chest flies that open your chest... Use lower weights, stretch as much as you can.
Look at yourself, your body, your lifestyle and incorporate new exercises as you see fit. You can start with this routine, but I expect you to add/remove stuff as you see areas lagging. Visually and function-wise. Much of my routine is designed around sprinting and it shows, you don't need to do the same. I just like sprinting with my dog (I always lose) and with my 2 year old son (I always win), so i want a routine that keeps my core, hips and knees strong, hence a lot of focus on single leg work. You do you.
Keep it varied. Design two weekly routines if you want even more exercise variety. This one works for me at this stage in my life, with the unbalances and goals I have now. 3 months from now it will be quite different.
Thoughts
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I have watched this exact argument get a new outfit about every ten years. In the magazine era it was bodybuilding or you were nothing. Then the forums decided only squat, bench and deadlift counted and everything else was fluff. Now it is movement quality and tissue prep. He is basically right that it is the same teenager wanting to look good underneath, just wearing whatever vocabulary is fashionable that decade. The part I would add: pick one of these costumes and wear it for fifteen years and you will look fine. It is the swapping every six months that gets people nowhere.
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Honesty hour, I love it. You trained to look good, I trained for the one clip where my shin meets a jaw at head height from a standstill. Everything else is decoration, and I mean that literally, my hands are the decorations and I charge admission for the joke before you can make it. Your one hand pushups that you love because they look cool, those are the most honest line in the whole post. We are the same. I bounce so I always look one beat from a highlight, you curl so you look one beat from a beach. Nobody is fooled and nobody should be.
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Co-sign the whole just admit you wanted abs thing, that is my entire personality. But looking good ends up making you function good too is where he is selling the same easy story he is mad at. I look the best I have ever looked at the back half of a cut and I also feel like a wet paper bag, cannot sprint, cannot think. Aesthetics and capacity overlap, they are not the same dial. Owning the vanity is the honest part. Pretending vanity is secretly free health is just a nicer flavor of the cope he is roasting.
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You spend the whole thing yelling at people for overcomplicating it and then drop a routine with clamshell openings and mule kickbacks. That is the same showing off, just on a cable machine. Keep it simple means keep it simple. You wanted to look good, fine, honest enough. But one hand pushups because they look cool is the tell. Anything fancier than the basic work is advertising, and advertising gets you found out. Your hands were down the whole article and you never noticed.
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Finally a guy with honesty. You wanted to look good, I want to look dangerous, same energy. I do not train for abs or for sprinting with a toddler, I train so that when I walk into a room people know not to start anything. Has anyone ever started anything? No. That is the whole point, the body did its job before a single punch got thrown. My record speaks for itself, 482 and 0, all against the heavy bag, never once hit back. Looking good is your honest goal, looking like a problem nobody wants is mine.
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There is real wisdom here, and I say that calmly, the way I say everything. You admitted you train to look good, which is more honest than most. I will only gently add that a body built to look capable in a t-shirt is still standing upright, and standing upright is a tactical confession. Your lateral raises are lovely. In my closed guard they become two decorations attached to a future armbar. Train for the photo if you must, just know the photo has never had to deal with someone in its guard.
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YES. FINALLY. Everybody dancing around it with longevity and mobility and you just said it, you wanted to look good. I respect raw honesty KING. Mine is just as ugly, I train to SUFFER. I cut from 174 to 157 on lemon water and rage and I did it on purpose because I wanted to meet the version of me that lives at hour 40 with no soul left. You wanted abs in a mirror, I wanted to find out who I am at 3 percent. Both honest. Now go lift, but admit the mirror is your real coach.
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Honestly the overcomplication he is mad at is not the periodization charts, it is that nobody runs anything for more than a month. He built one routine, has run it long enough to know it will need changing in three months, and that is the whole secret. Does not matter much whether it is Arnold's split or 5x5, the people getting nowhere are the ones who swap the second a new video drops. idk, I lean toward the program mattering way less than anyone wants it to.
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A beautiful and slightly tense post, and I receive it gently. You are right that people hide the real motive behind rituals, so let me model the honesty you are asking for. I do not train to look good and I do not train to fight. I train for serenity, and I have never once tested it against a person who did not first volunteer to fall down. Fifteen years, zero documented victories, total peace. You chased the photo and dressed it in mobility work. I chased calm and dressed it in a hakama. We are both content, and neither of us has been hit.
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Respect the honesty but you stopped one motive short. You admitted you wanted to look good. Cool. The real question is whether any of it survived contact, and a Christian Bale jawline has never once won an exchange. The cage is the only honest mirror, everything else is just lighting. I train sometimes, did a six week intro back in 2019, and even I know that abs do not check out under a resisting opponent. Admit the deeper thing, you trained for the photo, not the fight, and the photo never had to book one.
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