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If You Are Going To Make A Mistake
Might As Well Be a
BIG ONE
A few days ago, I met a young man, with a small problem. Well, the problem was actually a big one, and it was all about being small. The young fellow had stopped by and in the context of our short visit stood up and asked me to “guess” how long he had been training.
Now while I am no big fan of game shows on TV or anything, I do have a fairly good eye with regard to physical makeup, that has been sharply honed through over fifty years in the gym.
My first impression at this point was I was looking at an individual that could bring suit against his parents for poor gene pool application and won. I was pretty much convinced that if he had genes they were of the Wrangler variety only.
“Well kind of hard to guess that sort of thing, but I’d say.. hmmm maybe six months” (I was being kind, or as kind as I get).
“Try six YEARS”
“OH DUDE…in that amount of time, a guy should be able to add muscle to a fence post.”
Now while I am in total shock here, I have to admit that two things came to mind immediately. One: the young man before me had NO CLUE as to proper training. Two: WHO spends six years doing something with no discernable results? Hell, who spends 6 months walking in a straight line and still remaining in the same place?
Unfortunately, this man’s plight is not one that is unique to just him.
If you’re not making regular gains in muscular strength and size you’re probably making one or more of the following common training mistakes. These are some of the biggest mistakes a bodybuilder or anyone training with specific strength and fitness goals can make, and correcting them can often make the difference between outstanding gains and none at all. Or, worst case outcome, actually loosing ground. |
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Okay, ready to take notes? You may not like some of what you are about to read, but it holds valued truths that can alter your training experience. Just because it isn’t what you want to hear, don’t immediately write if off. Truth can be a bitter pill to swallow.
1. Not Training Hard Enough
Number one on the list, for a valid reason. If you fail to incorporate any of the other recommendations, this one alone will boost results in ALL cases.
Progressive resistance training (weight training) is by the very foundation of its makeup intended to be intense by nature.
To stimulate muscular strength and size increases, you have to work your muscles harder than they are accustomed to, this is not an option, but a central requirement in progress.. To be more specific, you should perform each exercise until it is impossible to continue in good form, using a heavy enough weight that you are only able to perform between 5 and 15 slow, controlled reps (some people get better results with lower rep ranges, e.g. 5-8, some with higher, e.g. 10 to 15, but most would do best to start in the 7 to 10 range and adjust from there).
KEY POINT: The exercise is not over when the muscles start to burn or when things start to become uncomfortable. And it is sad to say this is the point where the vast majority of trainees allow the discomfort of the movement to dictate the end of the training process. The real valuable work is just beginning.
The exercise isn’t even over when your muscles feel like they’re on fire or about to explode and your heart is pounding through your chest and you can suddenly taste your last three meals, you’re just getting to the best part.
The greatest stimulus for muscular strength and size increases occur during the last few hardest reps. The single most productive rep is the rep that you try with all your might to lift in perfect form and cannot complete.
If you give up at any point short of an all-out effort, you aren’t going to get nearly the growth stimulation. Now granted a large number of trainees NEVER acquire the ability to push themselves to that limit. But the process of trying will reap rewards. And the closer you come to reaching that magical limit of total muscular exhaustion, the more gains you will see for the time you put in working out.
Now … I said muscular exhaustion, muscular failure … NOT reps for the sake of numbers. All reps must be exact copies of all other reps, smooth, controlled and totally productive within that scope.
A Quick Side Note: Countless times over the years I have had people tell me that they trained hard, to failure, and were accustomed to such work. Only to find out when they were actually put in a position where such work was demanded from them that what they had in all honesty seen as hard work, was more of a warm up to the hard work.
2. Not Training Progressively
To make muscular gains you MUST become stronger. And as you become stronger you must continue to apply the overload principle, by never allowing the resistance to remain at a level you have acquired the ability to work with. You must keep raising the bar, looking to built greater abilities of muscular performance.
Remember, you joined the gym to improve and heavier weights stimulate further improvement. If you continue to use the same weights on all your exercises despite increasing in strength, the weights will no longer be challenging enough to stimulate further improvements.
When you were young, it is most probable that the first word you were taught to write was your name, this is common with almost all children. Before “apple” and Cat and Dog … you knew how to spell Scott, or Pete, or Jim or whatever your name is. Now, once having mastered this wonderful gift of knowing how to write the letters in your name, what would the total outcome have been if those letters were the ONLY letters you were taught?
Try and see how many word combinations you can come up with, using JUST the letters in your name. That my friend would have been your total reading skills. Once a weight is mastered, you KNOW that weight, your muscle KNOWS that weight … NOW teach it something new.
Attempt to either perform more repetitions or use a slightly heavier weight on every exercise, not once a month or even once a week, every time you train.
In my opinion, one formed over many years of observation, there is little or nothing progressive in over 75% of both experienced or new trainees. And oddly, the more experienced the trainee, the less progressive the workouts become. Most seem to opt out for adding exercise (creating volume) rather than making exercise more progressive.
And the term “double progressive training” has been lost in “modern’ training.
3. Doing Too Many Exercises and Sets
It is the intensity of muscular work that stimulates strength and size increases, not the volume. Doing any more exercise than minimally necessary will reduce rather than improve gains, by interfering with the process of recovery and adaptation.
In most cases, all you need is one hard set of only one or two exercises per major muscle group. More is rarely necessary, and usually counterproductive.
If the first two points are strictly in place, they almost always take care of too much volume. You can work long or you can work hard, you cannot work hard for a long period.
Trust me, and any gym rat capable of performing a set of full squats to failure in a rep range of 12 to 15, with a weight of 400 pounds or more, will be quick to point out that doing so is vastly different than doing 4 sets of 10 with 100 pounds. Don’t believe me… Try it and see.
TRUE INTENSITY CANCELS OUT VOLUME
4. Training Too Frequently
NATURE, TO BE COMMANDED, MUST BE OBEYED
Sir Francis Bacon
The body must be allowed adequate time between workouts to fully recover and adapt, or gains will not occur. To paraphrase Sr. Francis .. You Can’t F@#k with Mother Nature.
Exercise does not produce any improvements in the body, none grows while they train, exercise can only stimulate and establish the need for the body to produce the improvements, if it is intense enough, or prevent the improvements from being produced, if it too much is performed, and performed too often. The body produces the muscular strength and size increases stimulated by exercise, but only if it allowed adequate time between workouts to do so.
If, as many seem to falsely believe, you did grow during the exercise process, wouldn’t it therefore be simply a process of staying in the gym, and lifting for whatever time it took, days, weeks, whatever, until you had the size you wanted?
You can use the natural muscular building process within the body’s makeup, but only if you obey the natural laws of growth that nature has established. 5. Not Keeping A Workout Journal or Progress Charts
Proper adjustment of training volume and frequency to avoid overtraining and keep your progress on track requires logical evaluation of progress. If you’re not keeping accurate records of your workouts, you can not objectively evaluate the progress within your program and make the necessary changes to keep gaining or get your progress back on track.
I am constantly amazed by the people I see in various gyms that never consult a workout guide or log, they “remember” their weights as they say. Hey, If you can remember all your various weights, then let there be NO Doubt .. You are not following the principles in suggestion number 2. Now if the weights never change, then this thing of remembering is very easy, and BY ALL MEANS, let’s keep things easy … God forbid we struggle or sweat.
And likewise your journal or record is where you can keep notes on outside factors that can and will influence the total workout. Lack of sleep, or more than normal sleep, diet information, total training time (always trying to keep rests to a minimum) and anything outside the gym that could influence your performance.
So, stop and think my children, there is a reason that the ability to adjust weights to a higher level exists. If there was no need, then all the bars, all the machines would have only one weight or weight setting.
6. Ignoring Proper Form
Poor form severely reduces the effectiveness of an exercise and expeditiously increases the likelihood of injury. This simple fact cannot be stated strongly enough.
Now I could easily write an entire book on the specifics of proper exercise form within the context of various exercises, but one of the most effective ways to improve exercise form in general can be summed up in two words: slow down. Let me restate that, just in case you misunderstood, if you want improved form and the improved results that result from it, SLOW DOWN. Moving more slowly and fluidly makes it easier to maintain proper positioning and alignment, and allows for better focus on performing the exercise correctly and on intensely contracting the target muscles. Also, your focus on the contraction will improve, thinking more about what you can now feel within each movement, as opposed to thinking about throwing a weight for a given number of reps.
When you are really ready to get the ultimate results for the time you invest in your training, you will have to commit to lifting the resistance rather than throwing it. I have said the following countless times to my clients over the years… “Bodybuilders DON’T lift weights, bodybuilders flex muscles, and the weight moves as a result. Stop focusing on the weight, and focus on the involved muscle or muscle groups, slow down… FLEX AND IMPROVE.”
7. Switching Exercises or Routines Too Frequently
Real gains are made by consistent progress on the basic exercises over time. Changing routines every time the wind blows (weatherman’s workout approach)or every time you see someone else doing something different prevents the body from getting past the initial, primarily neural/skill adaptation stage and into the more productive training that follows.
The belief that one must change their routines regularly to avoid plateaus because the muscles “adapt” to exercise is based on the observation that the fastest improvements in performance on an exercise routine occur over the first six to eight weeks after which it begins to slow down, and that changing the routine appears to solve this problem.
During the first several weeks performing a new exercise or routine a larger percentage of the improvements in exercise performance are due to neural or skill adaptations. After this initial period of neural adaptation or muscle skill acquisition, performance improvements slow down and the majority of adaptation is occurring in the muscles. This is where the real progress starts, however, and it is important to not change the routine at this point. It will be slower than during the initial six to eight weeks, but you will make progress if you properly adjust your workout volume and frequency.
Contrary to bodybuilding myth and uninformed opinion, the muscles do not stop adapting to a particular exercise, method, or routine – if there is sufficient overload a muscle will be stimulated to grow, and as long as volume and frequency are not excessive, and adequate rest and nutrition are provided, and one hasn’t already reached the limits of their potential, it will grow stronger and larger.
If you only performed a few, basic barbell exercises, covering all the major muscle groups, and trained hard and progressively you would eventually become as big and as muscular as your genetics allow. There is no need to constantly switch up angles, rep methods, or anything else.
8. Not Training Legs
Heavy leg work, squats, deadlifts, leg presses, etc., can be brutal when done properly, and as a result many would-be bodybuilders or self proclaimed bodybuilders avoid it, preferring to focus on the relatively easier upper body exercises. This is a huge mistake, as heavy leg work has a beneficial effect on growth throughout the entire body, particularly squats and deadlifts.
This “spill over” with regard to results is often referred to as the “indirect effect” produced by muscle growth within the largest and most powerful of the body’s muscular structure.
Do not skip training legs. Doing so robs you of potential full-body size increases. Want to gain 10, 20, or more pounds of good solid muscle… then train the BIG groups where the largest concentration of muscle already exists. Not to mention that having a well developed upper body and chicken legs looks stupid.
9. Not Eating Enough Quality Food
Your body requires both material and energy to produce new muscle tissue. Often, when skinny guys complain they have a hard time gaining muscle mass, it turns out they simply aren’t eating enough food in general to support the growth they stimulate during their workouts. And don’t over focus on the intake of protein foods, keep the diet balanced, so the system can grow and remain healthy in the process. If you want to get big, you have to eat big. This doesn’t mean pigging out, but getting enough calories and protein daily to add at least a few pounds per month, but not so much your waist size or abdominal skin fold increases significantly.
Just like your workouts, you have to keep track of your eating and make adjustments based on how your body responds.
10. Wasting Money on Pills, Powders, and Promises
While no longer wasting your money on the vast array of worthless supplements shamelessly offered to the over enthusiastic weight trainee may not make your muscles suddenly start growing, it will stop your wallet from shrinking.
There are those that will argue until Christ comes back that some supplements have been proven to be beneficial. There are even some who will swear on a stack of Bibles that certain supplements offer “anabolic” effects much like steroids and are both safe and legal. These no doubt are the ones that believe the used car salesman when he tells him that the grandmother that owned the Mustang convertible only drove it to church every other Sunday.
Believe what you will, such is totally out of my control, but for the few that are reading this, who have logic within their arsenal of training weapons, I say to you stop and think. Use reason and question the claims and “studies” sited in advertisements.
And for those of you that will dive into the supplement cesspool and see the results staring back at you from the mirror that no one else can see, I say WAKE UP and smell the coffee.
I WISH I HAD A DIME FOR EVERY TIME SOMEONE HAS STOOD THERE, STAINING TO FLEX SOME UNSEEN UNAQUIRE NEW MUSCLE, ALL THE WHILE EXPOUNDING ON THE GREAT RESULTS SOME NEW SUPPLEMENT HAS GENERATED.
Wake up people… time to smell the coffee.
At some point in your training adventure, you like the rest, will come to realize that these magic supplements have little or no benefit. And from personal observation, it is this very individual who comes to look for and embrace such “outside aids” that will in the end resort to the use of steroids. And guess what, when they finally do “juice” and get some of the magic results they were looking for in the supplements, if asked what they are taking, they will almost to a man tell people that is this or that new supplement, thus compounding the belief that exists within the rest of the “secret seekers” in the gym.
If you want to know about supplements, don’t read about them in the bodybuilding magazines – remember they make a large amount of their money selling advertising to supplement companies and are hardly unbiased sources of information on the subject. Almost everything you read in muscle magazines is total horse crap. If you want reliable information on supplements or their ingredients, read the scientific journals, and even then, do so critically. Learn to question and use logic.
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