How Blaming My Genes Almost Cost Me 10 Years of My Life (Here’s How to Avoid the Same Trap)

This one shift freed me from the genetics excuse and put me back in control of my body.

I come from a long line of hobbit-like men ranging anywhere from 5’8” to 6’ with good-sized bellies, and the only thing that runs in the family is diabetes.

If there’s anybody that gets to blame their genes for their physique, it’s me.

I mean, honestly, I can pack on weight faster than the U.S. government covers up its dirty deeds. On the other hand, recreating the Mona Lisa would come easier than optimizing my body to burn body fat.

But my genetics aren’t the reason I’ve struggled to rebuild my strong physique, and neither are yours.

In this article, I’m going to show you how blaming my genes almost ruined my life, and how you can avoid the same mistake.

Life Took A Turn

It was August 1st, 2023. The football team was reporting to the building for our first mandatory practice of the season. The first task of the morning was moving the rubber gym flooring that was going to be installed in our locker room later that month.

While moving the final roll, I felt and heard something I’ll never forget:

“Pop, pop.”

My bicep tendon ruptured.

You wouldn’t be able to tell from the outside, but my world crashed down around me in that moment. My second child would be delivered that Friday, the new school year was starting the next week, and I was finally making progress in the gym again.

Surgery was smooth. Rehab progressed without a hitch. But mentally, I was defeated.

If it wasn’t for the rehab exercises I was doing every day, the only physical activity I was registering was walking my classes to the weight room and moving around at practice. There was no lower body lifting or cardio, and my diet spiraled out of control.

I was growing heavier and weaker as the months passed by.

In March of 2024, I was released to resume my normal weight lifting programming without restriction. This perked me up a little bit. I went into work early to start lifting again.

If I’m being honest, that first week sucked. My old warm-up weights felt heavy, and my old heavy weights felt impossible. To top things off, the diet I had started in January had led to no results. In my mind, I was working hard and getting no results.

That’s when I started to blame my genetics.

I became hopeless, and in that hopelessness I began to resent everyone around me. My family for being short and stocky. The western diet for being full of junk carbs. My children for stealing training time from me.

I’ll be the first to admit it, I was a jerk. But I wouldn’t admit it then. I swore I was physically weak and unable to lose body fat because of everything else in the world except my own actions. I was choosing to be miserable.

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Here’s What Changed My Outlook

A full year went by. Football season was around the corner and I wasn’t excited for it at all as my outlook on life was terrible. My anger, self-pity, and complaining about how my body wasn’t responding to training was having an impact on how I viewed the job I was called to do.

I remember specifically telling my wife at one point:

“I’d be ok if I didn’t wake up some mornings.”

That wasn’t me talking. That was the person I became after playing the victim. The person who pointed at everyone else as the reason they weren’t where they wanted to be in life. A man who had given up on life and was letting his emotions decide how his life was going to turn out.

You can imagine the look of worry on my wife’s face. It scared me too, hearing myself say those words. I needed to take a step back and evaluate what was really going on.

It turns out I was pissed off at myself.

Pissed off that I didn’t stand up for myself at work. Pissed off that I stopped eating like a grown man. And pissed off that I stopped training altogether just because I had one hurt muscle that kept me from doing a few exercises.

If one of my athletes had tried that, I would have been all over them to correct the issue.

I had to stop playing the victim and feeling sorry for myself. If I didn’t, I’d lose my purpose, my family, and my life.

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Taking Ownership

During my mental and physical rebuild, I spent a lot of time reading and digesting material from Jocko Willink. Here’s a quote from a TEDx Talk that has stayed with me and echoed in my mind every time I feel myself start to drift back:

“Take ownership of your shortfalls, take ownership of your problems, and then take ownership of the solutions that will get those problems solved. Take ownership of your mission. Take ownership of your job, of your team, of your future, and take ownership of your life.”

Jocko’s message is a clear one. You have to stop making excuses for everything in life, control what you can control, and take ownership of every aspect of your life. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be able to fix your life and move forward.

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One Rule That Rules Them All

I’ve since created one rule for myself that manages how I embrace difficult seasons of life:

Control what I can control.

I can’t worry about how the other teachers at school manage their classrooms. I can’t worry about the lack of culture the athletic department has as a whole. I definitely can’t worry about my genetics or how easy it is for other people to build an awesome physique.

All I can control is my effort, my thought process, and the energy I bring to the world every day.

If you can do those three things consistently, it doesn’t matter how bad your genetics are. You will earn the results you’re looking for. Your genetics might be your ceiling, but your consistency will be what gets you there.

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The Time to Choose

While I was blaming my genetics for how my life was turning out, I was on the verge of losing precious time with my kids, enjoying building a life with my wife, and pouring into young men who need direction and guidance.

I was fortunate enough to catch myself before it was too late, and that’s why I’ve developed my newsletter: Path to Powerhouse.

I write for the man who wants to become stronger, but has been bogged down by the excuses he’s allowed himself to make. The man who needs discipline but doesn’t know how to develop it. And the man who longs to have an athletic body, but can only find content created by 22-year-old gym bros.

If that’s you, consider becoming a paid subscriber and receive member-exclusive articles that dive deeper into how to grow stronger, monthly programming that helps you grow stronger, and monthly Q&A in the subscriber chat where I answer everything.

Grow stronger,

- Josh