are you playing the right game?

Thoughts • seedling • 512 Words • Lifting, Games • Planted 08/24/2026

🌱 This is a thought, not a post — something I am still working out. It is published earlier and rougher than an article, and I expect to revise it in place rather than leave it fixed to the day I wrote it.

Is this the game you really want to be playing?

  1. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTAuNhEem/
  2. The Score: How To Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game by C Thi Nguyen

I stopped subscribing to the stakes of the game (getting jacked).

  1. Male body standards are strange because they are more formed by the male gaze rather than anything else.
  2. There is some research into the idea of muscles playing a part of sexual selection, but I don’t really buy into it that much.
  3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10480816
  4. If we were persistence hunters I think that bulky muscles would not benefit us that much.
  5. https://fitnessvolt.com/women-prefer-muscular-men/
  6. It’s hard to talk about this without getting into incel territory.
  7. https://www.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/swg1c5/study_on_what_1000_women_feel_about_muscular_men/
  8. https://boxlifemagazine.com/does-having-more-muscle-make-you-more-attractive/
  9. The internet, along with the increased availability of steroids, has lead to something termed “physique inflation”.

I am no different than anyone else swimming in our cultural soup and am susceptible to it, but I do think that it has to do on your community and information you are consuming. In this way, I believe it was partially related to when I was getting into lifting; at the same time as the rise and fall of science-based lifting (SBL).

I am incredibly grateful to the SBL community because there was so much information that was being translated into more digestible, and I learned a lot, but at the same time there was also a lot of non-evidence-based reasoning.

  1. neuromechanical matching
  2. progressive overload
  3. muscular irradiation and PaP
  4. I started lifting more consistently after a breakup where I somewhat subscribed to the idea of a post-breakup glow-up, but really was just trying to channel it into motivation for something that I had already wanted to do.

the balance between being disciplined and being attuned to yourself

  1. there will absolutely be days where you don’t want to go to the gym: are those the days you most need to go? or are they days where you should definitely rest?
  2. even if you do skip out, do you feel guilty or relieved?
  3. lifting and types of fun
  4. https://www.ridj-it.com/single-post/ground-truth-geology-and-the-origin-of-type-2-fun
  5. you could do HIIT or other stuff if you enjoy it more but that’s not for me - i don’t like feeling tired and i don’t like sports really that much bc i don’t like letting ppl down or being bad at things - i can eventually get over that but also im not very competitive bc the stakes matter zero to me so it can be hard to feel truly engaged in a game
  6. https://www.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/comments/61msqz/balance_between_disciplined_and_listen_to_your/

lifting is no small commitment

  1. there are no shortcuts
  2. either you put in a lot of time over time or a little time over a long time (for the same results) but eventually plateau as well of course

lifting & neuroticism: atrophy anxiety and perfectionism

  1. minimalism vs maximalism in SBL
  2. “premature optimization is the root of all evil”
  3. tracking is very tied to progression porn
  4. https://reeswrites.com/posts/visualizing-lifting-progression/
  5. The Quantified Self can be helpful or a hobby unto itself but can become unhealthy
  6. I have moved away from tracking over time as I become more embodied.

I have a new goal now though: lifting for longevity.

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