In my gym life including owning one these are the biggest mistakes I saw:
1) Under eating. Simply put an anorexic mouse was eating more than many (especially the women). Super healthy choices in portions that would blow away in a small breeze making it absolutely impossible to support anything other survival.
2) Isolation obsession: people just glued to machines, who would perform the odd free weight movement with no form and no ability to stabilize spending all their time in fixed planes hitting isolation movements.
3) In combination with 2: soreness obsession. If they were sore the better the “workout” – which meant a real focus on isolation movements with intensity modifiers which make you really sore. Soreness does not mean growth, it means soreness. DOMS are part of gym life, not the goal of gym life.
Often all 3 at the same time.
4) Be like the Pro’s – less common than the top 3. No idea about stages of development. Until you have at least 2 years consistent training you are a beginner, so if its 8 months on, 6 off, you are always a beginner. So people routinely adopt strategies completely inappropriate to their stage of development. The magazines don’t help, Phil Heath’s Olympia Arm Blast isn’t going to get you arms like Phil, ever. It will absolutely never happen. What you really want to know is, what Phil did to get those arms, not what he is doing to push them to the next level – he don’t need
to lie to you for it not to work, unless you are pro, don’t copy the pro, that’s training, lifestyle and nutrition.
5) Embrace the Grind: Fuck Off, I am not a pro athlete, so why the hell should every training session be a grind? Literally fuck that!
Now, I know not every session is going to be off the chain, most sessions will be okay (so guess what you can save your pre-workout money), but lots and lots of okay strung together is how real progress is made. Not every workout is an event, if they are you will burn out in a hurry or become very dependent on stimulants to last a bit longer till you burn out.
That’s the truth, if you don’t burn out you will get hurt. It’s a hobby, it may be a lifestyle hobby, so are skateboarding, skiing, golf, drifting and host of other hobbies, so its meant to be enjoyable, drifting is fun, fishing parts of your turbo out your engine isn’t!
I am a powerlifter now and my saying is punch the numbers. Go in and I hit the program, that’s it. Often it’s very dull and unexceptional, but what all those just good sessions come together to make the meet the exceptional day – when it is supposed to be.
As a bodybuilder, if you never compete, you want to look good, so actually you never need an off the chain session physically, they are just a mental boost.
Have fun and enjoy your lifting!
Leslie Willis is a Writer, Creator and a Beard Curator.
