Hey Guy’s I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days so I thought I’d write a blog post about it.My personal training clients in the ABS Gym frequently ask questions regarding genetics and the role they play in what you can and can’t achieve in the gym.

I will say some people are blessed with phenomenal genetics and some are not so lucky. Being a personal trainer in Dublin for over 12 years now and after training literally thousands of clients I know what an important role genetics plays in what your physique will look like once you’ve put in the blood sweat and tears!Well here goes….

I was working (modelling, not so much work as fun 🙂 ) on Saturday and got talking to one of the lads I was modelling with about training and nutrition.It was quite obvious within two minutes of talking to him he hadn’t got any real clue about training or nutrition.So it came to the time when we had to change into our next outfit and you can only imagine how bloody shocked I was when I seen how RIPPED this guy was. I was left scratching my head, god he must have been at least 4% body fat with lean muscle.

I mean he looked like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 4 if you’ve seen the Rocky movies, if not get the box set they’re deadly! 😉 I don’t want to sound begrudging or jealous but the guy had no clue about training or nutrition but yet was in this kind of shape. 

For Example he only looked at his intake of carbs, not the killer ‘sugar’ and he took in no healthy fats such as omega 3,6,9, he also took no supplements. His type of training included the long boring drawn out cardio for an hour on the treadmill or sitting on the bike for an hour.I was like “What?!”

He went on to tell me he lifts no heavy weights and hadn’t done his arms in 6 months. This guys arms were at least 18inches and RIPPED. I was amazed and appalled at some of the things he was telling me.I asked him if he did any heavy chins or dips because they would keep your arms in good shape if you did no isolation on them and he told me no with a smile on his face.I was sick!

Like many other people I have to work extremely hard for the physique I have and I have no problem with that but my god would I love Genetics like that!.. Lucky B***ard!!!I really do get frustrated when I am in the gym I train in and see idiots doing things arseways but when they see people like him in the kind of shape he is in and see the likes of him doing these idiotic things they just follow suit because they obviously believe that guy must know what he’s doing, look at the shape he’s in!!

Genetics has a lot to answer for and don’t judge a book by its cover when it comes to training ;-)In fairness to him he was interested to know how to better his training and diet which was surprising to me, for someone in his shape you would immediately think well what’s the point in offering advice, he won’t listen, but he did!I’m actually gona start to train him next week in the ABS Gym he was that interested!

Genetics is a powerful thing and not everyone is blessed with good ones so ya gotta just make the best of what you were given!In most cases it just means that you’ve got to go that extra mile and work that little bit harder but anything is achievable if you want it enough.. and that goes for everything in life! 😉

Sorry for my ramblings. 🙂

Darragh Hayes BBS CPT NCEHS

Personal Trainer Dublin | Cover Model Body Personal Training

The ABS Gym Personal Training Studio Temple Bar