The Biggest Secret to Making the Best Gains!
By Aaron Loynes
I've been wanting to write up a comprehensive article to share my views on a lot of things with everyone for a long time. I just wasn't sure how many people would really want to read the ramblings of a cranky, jaded, opinionated, old man that has no tolerance for most people. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't care if you anyone wanted to read it! I decided I was going to write it anyway!
The following is the first in what is going to be a series of articles that is meant to educate and enlighten everyone to the way I view things. Keep in mind that just because I wrote it doesn't mean it is necessarily correct - or even worth reading! After all I am not a bodybuilding guru. I am not the biggest, strongest, leanest, or even the smartest guy on this site. I am fairly educated, opinionated, and rather outspoken. None of that really matters though, because obviously you are still reading!
I can't guarantee that this will make a lot of sense, or that it will even follow any logical path. I just started writing and kept writing till I felt like I got it all out. So here you go...
Here is your problem:
YOU ARE THINKING TOO MUCH!
The number one problem that I see limiting people's progress is that people over think things way too much! If you ever read any of Dante's articles (Dante is the creator of the DoggCrapp training philosophy) you will see that he constantly refers to people who "Over analyze" everything. He states over and over again that the over analyzers are the ones that sabotage themselves and I have to say that I agree 150%!
Take a look through the posts on this board in the Exercise, Nutrition, and ESPECIALLY the Hardgainers sections and you will see countless posts of people asking questions about the tiniest little details of their workouts, as if making a small tweak to the angle of the bench is going to be the difference between gaining 2lbs of muscle in a month and gaining 15lbs of muscle in a month. Let me fill you in on a little secret: IT WON'T MAKE THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE! Are you worried that one of your meals today contained 7 grams of fat instead of 5? IT DOESN'T MATTER!
You see many people believe that there is some top secret method to working out or dieting that will give them the ultimate results. They constantly change their exercise programs and their diets in an attempt to try out the latest trick the fitness magazines are promoting. Everyone wants to believe that there is some top secret method or technique that will get them the perfect results in the shortest amount of time, so they keep trying everything they read about. Here is the thing - there is a secret technique! None of the magazines are going to tell you what it is though, because once you know it, you won't need to keep reading their articles! I am not going to tell you what it is yet either. I want you to keep reading!
How many times have you seen this scenario in the "Hard gainers" section on the site: Someone posts that they just can't get their pecs to grow no matter what they do. Some helpful person asks them: "What are you doing for your pecs?" The answer is inevitably something like: "I do 10 sets of flat bench, 10 sets of incline bench, 4 sets of flys, 8 sets of dips, and I do 100 push ups every night before bed. I also train my chest 3 times a week. I think maybe I am not turning my pinky finger in enough on my flys though because I am not getting much development of my outer lower pecs." The helpful person will try to educate this poor soul by telling them they may need to lower their exercise volume just a little bit which is generally countered with, "I tried low volume for a few weeks last month, it didn't work." Okay... great.
This type of situation truly annoys me because this person is never going to reach their goals. They are spending too much of their time worrying about the minute details of their workout and missing out on the bigger picture. The same thing happens with diet. People worry about having 50% of their calories coming from carbs vs 55% of their calories coming from carbs. It doesn't make THAT MUCH difference unless you are dieting for a contest!
My whole point here is that the tiny little details don't matter for the majority of the people out there! Those of you that cannot make gains in your workouts or are making no progress with your diet, tell me this:
How much time did you spend thinking and worrying about it in the last month? More than an hour? More than a full day? More than 2 weeks? How much did that worrying help your situation? It didn't did it? Bodybuilding should not consume your life, it should be something you plan out and execute, and then go on with the rest of your life.
What am I getting at here? I think it is pretty clear: I am trying to say "STOP THINKING SO MUCH!"
Look at the Old bodybuilders
Lets take a quick trip back in the "Way Back" machine and talk about bodybuilders in the "old days". If any of you read Arnold's Book "The Education of a Bodybuilder", you probably remember him talking about his training back in Austria. In the book he talks about how he did basic movements and always focused on constantly trying to increase his weights and reps. He also talked about some of the crazy things they used to do like going out into the woods and squatting with fallen trees until they could barely walk. If you watched "Pumping Iron" you saw the guys doing heavy basic movements and eating TONS of food. Read any book or interview on the guys from the 60s and 70s and you will see the same basic information: Lift heavy weights, work on increasing every workout, and eat tons of food. Did you ever see any of them worrying about what angle they had the bench at, or if they needed to add "just one more" exercise for a body part that was lagging? No - you would see them hitting the gym, making constant progressions and making great muscle gains. For their diets you KNOW they were not sitting there with a calculator making sure they took in exactly 200 calories more than their RMR. They ate healthy quality food all day long. If they were gaining too much fat, they ate less. Not gaining enough muscle, they ate more.
My question to you all then is this: If following common sense worked for the biggest and baddest bodybuilders of that era, why wouldn't it work for the 17 year old kid that is 150lbs that wants to gain muscle mass? It WOULD WORK! The problem is people are spending too much time over thinking what they are doing, and not enough time simply DOING IT. Okay, do you want to know what the big secret is for making incredible gains in the gym? Here you go:
And the big secret is...
BE CONSISTENT!
Kind of disappointing right? Something so obvious and simple. I know you guys wanted some kind of dramatic revelation that would make your progress come more easily. Well here is the harsh reality: There is no easy way to do it. Even going to "drug route" doesn't make it easy, which is a common misconception.
You want more right? Let me break it down for you. I have probably said this 1,000 times on this message board already, so everyone should know this by now: The key to making big strength gains in the gym is to always try to beat your previous numbers. Let me say it again: ALWAYS TRY TO BEAT YOUR PREVIOUS NUMBERS! If you go to the gym 2 workouts in a row and both times you bench pressed 175lbs for 3 sets of 10 - what have you gained? Nothing. You have not challenged your body to do something new. If you went to the gym last week and you bench pressed 175 for 3 sets of 10, but this week you go in and you do 175 for 12, 11, 10 - you have made progress! You are stronger now than you were last week. Constantly pushing yourself to beat your previous numbers it the ONLY way to constantly make gains in the gym. Going in and curling 25lbs dumbbells every time you go to the gym is going to make you really good at curling those 25lb dumbbells but is it going to make you gain muscle and strength? It sure as hell will not! You need to either increase your reps (within a range) or increase your weights EVERY TIME you hit the gym. Let me just repeat that once more so it will sink in: You will not make gains in the gym if you keep doing the same thing every time! Let me give you some more concrete explanation of what I mean, because I'm not saying that you will be able to constantly make gains on every exercise. There IS a limit, or you would be eventually bench pressing 1000lbs for reps.
People just are not content to stick with a program and wait to see what their results are going to be. They are constantly trying to "tweak it" and "change it up" thinking that there is something they must be doing wrong because they haven't gained 10lbs of mass in the last 2 weeks. Pick a program (I don't care what program it is as long as it makes sense) and STICK WITH IT for at least 2 or 3 months and then you will have a TRUE idea of if it is working or not. Changing your program every 2 weeks or even "switching up the exercises to keep the body guessing" is pointless. I don't care what the Weider Confusion Principle says - your body doesn't care what exercise you are using to give it the resistance. All that really matters is that the resistance is getting harder each time the workout comes around!
This is what I am saying: Pick a rep range for each exercise. Lets use bench press as an example here and say that you want to use 8 to 12 reps for bench. You go into the gym tomorrow and you get 9 reps with 185lbs for 2 sets. Nice work. Next week when you go into the gym you are going to try either 190lbs for a minimum of 8 reps (stay in your rep range) or go for more reps on your sets with 185lbs. If you are able to do more than 12 reps with it - you need to increase the weight to a weight that allows 8 reps. Simple right? Same principle applies to every exercise you can think of!
Again, lets apply this to your diet. Look at the guys back in the "Old Days," they knew that they needed to eat a lot of high quality food to make their gains. The same applies today. Sitting around wondering if you need to be taking the latest supplements and if you should have 2 protein shakes a day or 3 is not necessary. Set up a solid diet plan, stick with it for a month. Did you gain body fat? If you did then adjust it appropriately. Simple as that. Of course there is a little more to getting diet right but the same thing applies. You shouldn't be spending all day long worrying about it.
The message here is that simple things work. You don't need to make it complicated in order to make good progress. The more complicated you try to make something, the more time you have to waste getting it right, and the more chances you will have to mess up and ruin your chances of making true progress.
Okay, so there you have it. The biggest secret to making the best gains possible, in my opinion anyway.
I could probably go on and on a bit longer here, but I think thats about enough of my ridiculous rambling for one day. Stay tuned for the next installment in this series!
PS: None of the examples I used are meant to make fun of anyone on this board... they are generic examples of people from my 7 years of experience on various message boards.
|
Home
FAQ
Register
Posted - 10/09/2007 : 12:40:57
USA ~
Posts 