Aside from the odd cardio strongman proving the exception to the rule, it’s generally accepted cardio and bulk do not go hand in hand.
The general sentiment being: too much cardio strips your body of the calories it needs for significant gains, while too much weight lifting (and bulk) will slow you down, making you an ineffective endurance athlete.
However, looking beyond the extremes of the Arnold Schwarzenegger types and ultra-endurance whippets, we have those who possess the much-coveted ‘in-between’ body – the archetypal influencer’s figure.
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Australian Body Transformation Coach Brock Ashby is one of those lucky men, laying claim to one of those body transformations you read about in magazines but usually dismiss as unrealistic.
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Ashby recently took to Instagram with an insight we can all learn from, after being “smoked” by other athletes in a bunch of fitness challenges on Bondi beach (the photo he posts alongside the story is from elsewhere, however).
“DID YOU SAY CARDIO??” Ashby captioned the post.
“Just got my ass handed to me doing a 4km run, 50 burpees, 50 sand cleans, 300m sprint and a 200m sprint/swim up against 4 complete athletes.”
“I’m no endurance athlete (that’s for sure), the last run I did was in 2018.”
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“But the only reason I got smoked was because I haven’t put in the work for my endurance.”
“I don’t run… I don’t swim… I train completely different to the other athletes.”
“If you want to get to a certain level, you have to train to that level!”
“If you want to be a gun runner, you need to train like a gun runner… If you want to be shredded, you need to train and diet like a shredded person would… If you want to be wealthy, you have to work your ass off to accumulate that wealth.”
“It’s pretty simple but it needs to be said because too many people complain about their results but their work ethic doesn’t match what it takes to get there.”
“Set a goal… Work as hard, and as smart, as you need to get that goal… Repeat, repeat, repeat.”
This fits in with the training philosophy of David Goggins who, speaking to Joe Rogan last year, dropped various ‘brutal’ insights many can learn from too.
“The greater the suffering the greater the peace,” Goggins told Rogan.
Goggins also wrote on Instagram, “If you want to measure yourself against someone, make sure it is a person who is waking up early and going to bed late… We fill our heads full of bullsh*t on what hard work looks like… [but] the truth of the matter is that hard work does not look pretty, the effort behind it is sometimes mind-numbing.”
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The Rock’s latest example of extreme commitment to working out (and of course his physique) provides yet further evidence that sheer commitment may be an overlooked element to achieving success in the gym.
We’ll lift to that.