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The 'Ole Side Step
More and more over the years, I am convinced that this process we call “training” and the landscape that houses the iron we use in the quest for our newly invented and reshaped bodies, is more suited as a psychological lab dedicated to the observation of the mentality disillusioned. I am constantly amazed when I enter the typical gym, that I am not greeted with vast numbers of psychologists and anthropologists dressed in lab coats, clip boards in hand, deep in a study of this under-ground culture -- a culture dedicated to the pursuit of NOT making the very gains they say they are seeking through the process of all this lifting, sweating, grunting and moaning.
Let me explain since this whole process has changed little from when I first ventured into the world of iron and sweat:
Typically, a young man makes up his mind that he wants to be bigger, stronger, and almost always more attractive to the opposite sex. He seeks out and finds the “coolest” gym around (you know the one, with all the heavy metal music playing, the space age looking equipment, and yes all those sexy men and women members he’s so envious of) and plops down his membership fee so he can begin his Holy Quest for all that he is sure awaits him.
Then, so as not to miss any valuable information that comes out of the “scientific” exploration and study of this new venture, he buys every book and magazine he can find on the subject. He reads over and over, every article, carefully making sure to digest all the “valuable” information contained within. |
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It doesn’t stop there. He talks with anyone that will give him the time of day about his new adventure into the realm of iron and muscle, making a special effort to extract “secrets” from all those big guys at his new club. And thus begins the process of sorting through all the conflicting statements and “truths” put into his bag of knowledge.
Not to leave any stone unturned, he assaults the net with keys flying in a frenzy as he surfs this way and that from one message board to another, the sites and the information seemingly endless. He feels sure as he processes all the “knowledge” that he is arming himself with all the FACTS he will need to accomplish his ultimate goal … Physical perfection.
Also, with credit card in hand, he joins the millions of other sheep, to line up for the slaughter, as he orders every conceivable super anabolic enhancing testosterone boosting supplement he will need to push his system to new heights of muscle growth. He feels much like a warrior of old, strapping on the Armour of Invincibility and readying himself for the war against weakness and anonymity. He is a King waiting for his crown.
The line in the sand has been drawn, the battle is on, let the results begin. But, alas, something goes amiss, and the results he was so confident of, fade as mist in sunlight.
Day after day he is in the gym, muscles at the ready. He went to all the little group classes, rolled around on the brightly colored balls of varying sizes, lunged this way and that, pulled on the little rubber band things, and then made his way to the weight equipment to “train” with lifts my dead grandmother could still hoist about. Oh, for sure, he was following all the key information from the magazine pages, he was following Mr. Big’s program to the point of total exhaustion.
You see, with all this “preparation” he has failed to recognize and worse still DO the very thing he needs to do, the KEY Element in a program of progressive resistance training.
Ready for an experiment? Prepare yourself, clear your mind, and concentrate. Remember you can accomplish anything if you are focused and prepared. Stand up, and mentally draw a line across your room from one side to the other. Now place your toes on the line. Okay, ready for the big experiment? Without moving your toes off the line, and only taking side steps, walk to the far wall. Take as many steps as you like, in either direction, but keep your toes on the line and only move left or right. Go ahead … I’ll wait.
You there yet?
Now, forgive me, as I sit here in front of the ole’ puter screen and wonder how many of you, after reading the instructions, actually tried that.
This was to illustrate a key point that our “well prepared” individual seems to have ignored or overlooked.
He wasn’t doing the key thing he needed to do to ensure his progress. He was trying to move his head while taking side steps. Want to make it across that room? Then you have to step forward again and again until you smack your nose into the far wall.
To make it from where you are now strength and condition wise, you have to stop stepping to the side and make strides forward. You have to accept that the two key words in the phrase “progressive resistance training” are simply progressive and resistance.
In short, you have to stop all the screwing around and get down to the business of moving some iron.
Now, those veterans of the trenches, you are not exempt from this approach, not by a long shot. Often as not, the long time veteran gym rat will fall into the same quagmire of training doldrums. Remember back when you first began your adventure into weight training? How the results came, many small, but they manifest themselves all the same. But then someone or something put the breaks on, and now you continually “show up” for workouts that are both unproductive and for many counter productive.
Year after year, month after month, workout after workout, you plug along doing the same ole’ crap with the same lack of progress. You hesitate, balk at change, reject logic and convince yourselves that “eventually” it will all pay off. Well, keep doing that, keep taking those side steps to nowhere, if that makes you happy.
But for those of you that truly desire progress and are willing to “do the deed”, it’s time to train at a level that is intense enough to trigger those lagging and nonexistent results as well as provide the system with ample time to recover and grow.
You don’t have to have a PhD or be a Rocket Scientist with this. I could sit with you and explain all the key aspects in as little as 20 minutes or less. It is then up to you and only you to apply them, stick with them, and reap the benefits.
Hard, intense, brief exercise … performed in controlled deliberate manner. There in less than ten words I have summed it all up. No puff / no fluff / just good advice.
Step out, step forward, move some iron people. The process must go forward. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to lift what the 300-pound guys lift but YOU must progress, small steps will get you across the room and on to your goal just as surely as the large steps you may see others making. It only matters that you make the forward step, not how big a step it is.
Example: When you can barbell curl say 50 pounds in good strict form, then add some weight, the smallest amount you can. In our club we have the luxury of having at our disposal plates for the Olympic bar in denominations as low as ½ pound. You may or may not have such available to you but add as little as you can.
Find your way back to the basic exercises such as full squats. Yes, they are hard to do, yes they hurt, yes they make you breath and work hard, but that’s why they work!
No more talk, time to pile on some iron and drench those plates with your own sweat. That’s really all there is to it, so get to it. Have at it. Make some gains.
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