Any experienced body builder will tell you that their trip to being huge was a giant metamorphosis (or meatamorphosis as I like to call it). I can’t directly give you insight as to the end stages and how different men have truly viewed them as I’m only halfway through my journey. But being halfway there, I am starting to understand what people like Arnold Schwarzenegger have said in the past about what body building is and how it works and how there are different stages. And really, the path of working out is one that can be explained as a metamorphosis.

Stage 1: The Couch Dreamer

Stage 1 is usually the guy laying on his couch. He’s watched his ex girlfriends drool over Ryan Gosling shirtless and likely blew off the queue until he found himself shirtless and alone after a breakup. This stage usually involves watching infomercials about working out while eating potato chips and complaining about your life. A bro has not yet found this poor soul and so he sits in a realm of Purgatory. Not directly making himself too much worse but not fixing himself either. Just pondering the pros and cons to doing nothing versus doing something.

Stage 2: The Beginning

It is at this stage that our assailant has finally begun his journey. This was likely due to a bro-tervention with a friend telling him that he’s being a sappy sad piece of crap and that if he wants to go balls deep anytime soon he better get rid of the tits he’s carrying around and turn it into muscle. This is the first significant transformation for men who start working out because it’s the first time they’re really working out. It’s also virgin gains territory where curling a 15lb dumbbell can actually give you gains. It’s also likely the first time men will see positive affects from their initial workouts.

Stage 3: Quitting Versus Continuing

This stage is quick and simple and follows almost immediately after the beginning. Either the man will find enough success and reasoning to continue turning himself into a man beast, or his mother will tell him to clean his room and he’ll quit. The more encouragement from friends will work wonders, but unrealistic expectations will shatter dreams. Many men quit here, but the best continue pushing onward.

Stage 4: Building Size

Stage 4 is around the time that men usually start seeing some sizable gains. The transition from toning based exercises to things that will actually start bulking up takes affect. Men at this level realize the idea of just getting really toned is an impossibility and will have you looking like a cross country queen. Men want pecks, biceps, quads, and abs, and they intend to make them large enough to see across the street. This is weight lifting level up number one of the final few stages. Good changes are happening and success is imminent.

Stage 5: Loving Yourself

Working out initially begins as a way to get women. Most men who get really into working out had some strikeouts with women at some point. With the strikeouts and a push from a fellow bro the idea to get muscles to get women comes about. By stage 5 men stop caring what women think. it is at this stage that men begin to fall in love with the way they look in a mirror. The downside to this stage is there is often more flexing in a mirror while working out than truly necessary. The upside is men at this stage have a very high confidence level knowing that they look good. The only thing humbling people at this level comes when someone more jacked walks next to them.

Stage 6: Gym Alpha

This is the elite level of your local gym. You’ve lifted long enough to get good gains and garner the attention of women and newbies to the gym. You’re buff and you know it but you’re also in limbo. It’s at this level that you can either choose to step it up a notch to go for Zyzz level. Of you can continue just being that buff guy at the gym who looks great at the beach. Staying on this level is acceptable, it’s similar to being a really good athlete in high school. You did your part, people will remember you, but your journey just might not excel past this.

Stage 7: Going Pro

For the really hardcore gym alphas, this is when they decide they want to make a living lifting. Whether its as a fitness model, through strongmen, or through bodybuilding this is when shit gets serious. These men are beyond being in love with themselves. They want statues built of their physiques for space aliens to admire. They’re making money off their body quicker than Puerto Rican hookers at Miami beach and love every second of it. They wake-up, lift, eat, nap, lift, and then don’t party, because they take their shit seriously. If its not a female fitness model whose too busy to go out they’re not banging her. But they can truthfully say they’re going for quality (because quantity would ruin their diet).

Stage 8: Legend Status

This level is for the most elite men. This is retained for legendary trainers and beastly bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These men have turned from being bodybuilders to being professional icons. Statues truly will be built of these men as they enjoy their brief stints atop Mt. Olympus to reflect back on the journey of weight lifting and how it’s been great to them in life. They know the time is short, and so it’s lived fast and intense, usually capping a lifetimes worth of events in as few as couple months.

Stage 9: Giving Back

This level can be attained with skipping levels 7 and 8, however the best men for this level have been through those stages. This is the stage where men have gone beyond their peak and are in their wisdom days. The muscle gains are starting to slip (or they just don’t feel like putting in as much effort anymore). The best part is these are the men who train the next generation. They’ve garnered past secrets to help get gains in non-traditional ways which fuel the next generation of men who will undoubtedly go on a journey to get fucking huge.

Read Next: Working Out Favors Men