I’m so close to throwing in the towel with fitness. You know, it feels good to be fit and be strong, but what doesn’t feel good is looking at myself in the mirror and seeing little to no visual progress. It feels like no matter how much weight I gain or lose, how much I fine tune my diet, or how much strength and performance I gain or improve upon, my physique barely improves. I don’t know what to do and it is frustrating the absolute hell out of me, particularly as I have seen people on here making insane progress in six months simply from “exercising and watching what they eat a little more”, or people achieving the same feats of strength as me and looking ripped whereas I look skinny fat.
I can overhead press 100lbs for 20 reps. I can do 55 bodyweight dips in a row. I can crack out over 100 bodyweight squats in a row. I can do 20+ pull-ups in one set, and do reps with 100lb strapped to my waist. I can do nearly 70 diamond push-ups in a row, do 100 in under 2 1/2 minutes, and do 30 with a 25kg backpack on my back. This sounds decently impressive, but this is not reflected in my physique at a. I’m currently 6’0 in the mid 180s and I feel I look totally average. I have no chest, no abs, my arms, shoulders, and traps look small. If I cut down I look starved, if I bulk up anymore I look fat/chubby. My abs never show no matter what I weigh or how much I train them, which is a lot because I am now doing standing ab wheel for reps. It makes no sense to be this strong but looking so normal, I’m starting to feel like this is a genetic thing even though I’ve always detested the idea of blaming genetics.
I seriously don’t see the point putting in all this effort to be handed so little in return. I’ve tried changing up my diet and routine. I’ve done 600 push-up workouts, and workouts with heavy weights with 3 reps. I’ve tried combined weights and bodyweight exercises, I’ve tried high volume bodybuilding training, and I’ve followed strength programs. I’ve been at this for nearly half a decade and I’m not even close to having a physique I would be decently happy with. Should I give up on aesthetics and simply work out just for health and performance reasons? There’s no point chasing a goal that seems futile, and it’s ruining my mental health. I feel like moving away from aesthetics would do me so much good mentally and I can focus on that what I’m actually good at.
Physique:
Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be ranty. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and it always baffles me being decently strong yet not looking nearly as good as some of the people on here who can match my numbers.