Know Exactly Why You're Doing Something

If you were to show me your routine, and I was to ask why you were doing certain exercises, you should be able to answer me. However, this is only true if you've been training properly for at least a year. This means that the first sentence does not hold true for beginners. Chances are if you walked into the gym for the first time, with no guidance from anyone you would just start doing curls. I know I was guilty of this.

I honestly don't think the reason why people train ineffectively is because they are stupid, but simply because they are misguided. I'm sure many folks did some research on how to exercise, or bought one of those muscle magazines to try to find a routine they could follow. Its good that they took the initiative, but unfortunately they looked in the wrong place. The problem with following the routines in magazines is that most of the time, those magazines are actually owned by supplement companies. So what they'll do is give you a crap routine to follow which changes every week, in the hopes that when you get frustrated from your lack of progress you'll resort to buying supplements in hopes of making progress. Its a dirty business (I don't think its as bad in Australia as it is in America though).

I'll be honest there's no golden program that will make you super strong and muscular. I think even people who've been training for over a year struggle with this. The best program is what works for you. You are not the same as the person next to you, so if you both were to do the same program don't expect the both of you to get the same results. If you compared the routines of the strongest people in the world, none of them are the same. Some people deadlift every week, some people only deadlift in competitions and train their deadlift by doing assistance exercises (you don't have to worry about this until you can deadlift at least 3 x bodyweight I reckon).

That's why you need to be smart with your training. If progress is going great, don't change what you're doing. The stupid thing about people who change routines every week for 'muscle confusion' or whatever is that they have no idea how they're making progress. How would you know whats working or not if you keep doing something different every week? If you need to make a change, change things one at a time, don't change the whole program, that way you'll know what's working for you and what isn't. When is it time to make a change? When something stops working. Duh.

I'll give you an example. For over a year I trained my deadlift by warming up then performing a heavy set of 5 reps ( 1 x 5 ). I was able to work up to a decent weight training this way, but eventually this method stopped working for me. When I deloaded and worked my way back up I got stuck at the same weight. I figured that my body wasn't getting stressed enough from training this way, and that I needed more volume, so I'm now doing more heavy sets to ensure I'm getting more work done. And once this method stops working I will need to figure out a new way to train my deadlift. Programming is an art.

I like doing heavy deadlifts and so should you.

So the problem with more experienced trainees is that they think once their program stops working, that its time to switch to a totally different program. Most of the time, its just one lift that has stalled, so there's no need to switch to a totally new program if the other lifts are still progressing. Just find a way to keep making progress on the exercise has stalled. Stalling can be frustrating, and it happens to everyone, its just part of the game. I'll talk about stalling in another post.

Bottom line, there's no perfect program, just what allows you to keep making progress for the time being.

But it seems I have contradicted myself. Why would I recommend generic cookie-cutter programs like Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength for beginners? That's because beginners aren't adapted to workloads yet. I bet after the first day of doing Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength, you got sore all over your body, even if the weights were light. That's because you're not adapted to this kind of workload. The aim of these programs is to get the trainee adapted to workloads, as well as get them strong in a short period of time. So beginners aren't at a stage where they need to tailor programs to their individual needs yet. I'll write a post on what to do once Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength stops working. The strength gains you'll make on Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength will be the quickest gains you'll ever make, since you're increasing the weight every session.

So then what makes Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength better than the routines you see in magazines? What if a beginner just stuck to a routine from a magazine and didn't keep switching routines every week?

Let me write out a day from a routine I found in a Men's magazine:

Day 1:

Bench Press
3 sets of 8-10 reps

Dumbbell Fly
3 sets of 8-10 reps

Partial Lockout
3 sets of as many as possible reps

Barbell Row
3 sets of 8-10 reps

Squat
3 sets of 8-10 reps

Dumbbell Shoulder Press
1 set of 8-10 reps

Barbell Curl
1 set of 8-10 reps

Tricep Pushdown
1 set of 8-10 reps

Standing Calf Raise
1 set of 8-10 reps

The other days are just as bad. Do you really think when doing so many exercises in one session, that you can put your best effort into each and every exercise? I'm pretty sure by the 5th or 6th exercise you'd just be going through the motions.

One session from Stronglifts 5x5 looks like this:

Squat
5x5

Bench Press
5x5

Barbell Row
5x5

Who do you think will be out of the gym quicker? The guy doing the first routine or the guy doing the second one? It's better to put more effort into less exercises, than less effort into more exercises. It's better to be good at a few things, than to be average at many things. If the only exercise you're doing for chest (and technically triceps and front deltoids) is the bench press, you're more likely to put more effort into it than if you were going to do incline bench then dumbbell flyes afterwards too.

Same concept for the other exercises. Better to put more effort into squats and deadlifts, rather than not push hard as hard as you can when doing squats, leg press, lunges, leg extensions and leg curls. Don't let your main lifts (squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press) be held back because you have to worry about doing other exercises afterwards. Isolating muscle groups for better definition is bullshit by the way, your muscle definition depends on your body fat levels.

Why do you think the strength performance sports only have a few lifts? Olympic Weightlifting has two lifts, the Clean and Jerk and the Snatch. Powerlifting has three lifts, the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift. To be good at something you need to do it more. Does your squatting technique suck? Squat more so you have more chances to work on it. Has your deadlift been stuck for months? Deadlift more because you need more volume. Note when I say more, I mean enough to cause stress that you can recover from. I don't mean like deadlifting every single day.

I can guarantee you Pyrros Dimas didn't do calf raises or lunges

Train hard folks, but also train smart.



Side note: I bet someone out there is going to disagree with this post. Well let me ask you this, if you have a beginner spend a year doing those routines in the magazines, or a year doing a program like Stronglifts 5x5 who's going to get better results? I know the answer because I spent a year each on both methods, and I've never gone back to the magazine routines.