gravityeyelids
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2013
- Messages
- 918
- Reaction score
- 192
I'm so damn fed up with this bodybuilding mentality that is horribly prevalent these days in weight training.
If you are a beginner you are not a bodybuilder!
If you are an intermediate you are NOT a BODYBUILDER!
It's so common these days for people to be recommended BODYBUILDING training programs when they are just starting out. This is a disease that is found in every gym in this country. The beginners see these buff dudes that have been training for like 8 years doing all of the complicated isolation movements.
"You need to isolate the long head of the tricep because it's out of balance with the other two. Do _____ exercise."
"You need to make sure you hit BOTH heads of the calves for best results. make sure you do _____ exercise, as well as _____ exercise. "
"Do a 6 day split with one body part on each day"
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NONSENSE? STOP recommending people to do all of these ridiculous, intricate isolation exercises, when they have no full body base of strength to build upon.
Bodybuilding is focused on aesthetics first and foremost. It's not focused on strength or functional training. There is no reason why these kids should be isolating their biceps 3x a week when they can't even properly squat or do pullups. If you took even half your energy that you put into making these elaborate programs and exercises and put it into PERFECTING the basic movements like squats and deadlifts, you would make so much more progress it would blow your mind.
And i'm sorry, but you are not an EXPERT just because you read a few posts on bodybuilding . com and go to the gym with your buddy for a few months and do some bench pressing and bicep curls. You need to have YEARS of Full Body Compound weight training and a great diet before you even THINK of isolating to the level that these people are recommending.
STOP reading T-Nation and BB.com articles that are made for advanced bodybuilders (often times targeted at those that are juicing), and stick to the basics for MONTHS, and better yet, YEARS.
There are Basic Functional Movements that will put more mass on, increase your strength dramatically, AND give you a extremely balanced aesthetic physique. These are:
Vertical Presses (Ex: Shoulder Press)
Horizontal Press (Ex: Pushups, Bench)
Vertical Pulls (Ex: Pullups)
Horizontal Pulls: (Ex: any type of Back Rows)
Squatting Motion (Squats, lunges)
Deadlift motion (Deadlift, good mornings.)
Core Stabilization (Planks. You think these are for women? Hold a plank for 3 minutes and then tell me what a manly man you are...pvssy)
Core Twisting movements (cable woodcutters, landmine 180's)
These motions are the way that your body was designed to operate and will activate EVERY major MUSCLE in your body.
STOP ISOLATING THE BICEPS. If your biceps are not KILLING from doing Pullups variations, rows,, you're not doing them properly. If your traps are not killing from doing deadlifts, rows, pullups, etc., you're not doing them properly. I see this toolbag in my gym every week doing bicep curls and he reminds me of this guy http://mm.gmstatic.net/72/645221.jpg . And HALF the kids at a college gym focus on two things: BENCH PRESS AND BICEP CURLS. It's because these are the "glory" muscles that you can see in the mirror. But guess what? These guys look TERRIBLE. They have rolled forward, hunched shoulders from lack of proper back and posterior chain training. They look like trolls. This is terrible both for you aesthetically, as well as hard on your thoracic spine and shoulders.
This leads me to my next point: BALANCE. You should NEVER be doing more ab exercises than you are doing lower back exercises. You should NEVER be doing more pushing movements than you are doing pulling movements. In fact, I would argue that your posterior chain (the muscles on the back of your body), are MUCH more important than those on the front, especially since they are frequently neglected.
You want to know what makes you look big? Back. Shoulders. Legs. Core. Incidentally enough, those are also the muscles that make you a big strong man able to pull tree stumps out of the fvcking ground. No one cares how big your biceps are if the rest of your upper body looks like sh!t and you have pencil legs. Theres nothing more intimidating than a guy who has giant lats and shoulders and glutes and legs and looks massive from behind.
You are NOT ready to start doing these complicated isolation movements. They are NOT SAFE. Not only are things like machines very hard on the joints, you also risk muscle imbalances. You are not experienced enough to recognize exactly how much biceps training you should do in relation to training for your lats, even if you think you are. If you train certain muscles in isolation more than others you will become imbalanced, which affects everything from your posture to your joints to your back health.
These basic movements are NATURE's way of allowing your muscle structure to grow itself in perfect balance and symmetry.
There is not ONE SINGLE REAL WORLD MOVEMENT that will activate your quadriceps without enacting other muscles like your hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, etc. So WHY the FVCK are you sitting on that single leg quad extension machine?
You feel you must isolate a single head in the quads to get those nice teardrop thighs that the girls love? Don't be ridiculous. Squat motherfvcker. Quit being a pvssy.
You need to do crunches to isolate the upper abs, and leg lifts to isolate the bottom, and another for the middle, and sides? What about your lower back health? The abs function to both stabilize and bend your body forward. If you overtrain these without bending your body the opposite way and strengthening those, you ARE going to have disc and lower back problems. Trust me. I've been there. TRAIN YOUR ENTIRE CORE. Stop isolating each part, because that's not how it's meant to operate.
Your muscle structure was not meant to operate in 45 different ways and isolate each muscle. Your muscles are DESIGNED to fire synergistically. If you isolate each muscle using machines, you will get stronger for each of those specific movements, but it is largely ineffective for translating to real world, compound strength. At this point i'm going to have haters screaming "so you're saying that the leg press doesn't help your squat!!" No. That's not what i'm saying. It will help to a degree. But you still have to work your way up and allow your new muscles and nervous system to get used to firing with the other muscles. And you risk growing your main superficial muscles without properly enacting the support of your connective tissue and smaller muscles, which paves the way for a whole host of injuries and joint problems.
COWBOY up. Legs Hurt. Compound Movements Hurt. Pullups Kill. That pain...that's called PROGRESS.
STOP reading bodybuilding guides and 5 and 6 day splits. Learn about STRENGTH and Balance. PERFECT a movement before moving on to the next one.
Many bodybuilders CHEAT frequently on their movements. I'm not trying to knock bodybuilding, i have massive respect. But they do. They swing those heavy weights all over the place. Wanna know what else? Many of these bodybuilders even step into the gym without a whole plethora of wraps, bandages, painkillers, ice packs, heat packs, drugs and stimulants to support their torn apart joints.
Focus on SAFE, controlled, perfect, slow movements for every exercise. Learn how to properly do each exercise. Drop the ego, drop the weight, and do it the right way. I know it's hard. Suck it up. It's going to hurt. It's easy to swing these weights around with poor form, but it's pretty damn hard to do them the right way.
Again, i'm not trying to trash bodybuilding (even though i do have some major problems with it). I have massive respect and grew up learning from people who were primarily into bodybuilding, which is why i know a lot about it and take such issue with how people go about it.
This nonsense has got to stop.
If you are a beginner you are not a bodybuilder!
If you are an intermediate you are NOT a BODYBUILDER!
It's so common these days for people to be recommended BODYBUILDING training programs when they are just starting out. This is a disease that is found in every gym in this country. The beginners see these buff dudes that have been training for like 8 years doing all of the complicated isolation movements.
"You need to isolate the long head of the tricep because it's out of balance with the other two. Do _____ exercise."
"You need to make sure you hit BOTH heads of the calves for best results. make sure you do _____ exercise, as well as _____ exercise. "
"Do a 6 day split with one body part on each day"
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NONSENSE? STOP recommending people to do all of these ridiculous, intricate isolation exercises, when they have no full body base of strength to build upon.
Bodybuilding is focused on aesthetics first and foremost. It's not focused on strength or functional training. There is no reason why these kids should be isolating their biceps 3x a week when they can't even properly squat or do pullups. If you took even half your energy that you put into making these elaborate programs and exercises and put it into PERFECTING the basic movements like squats and deadlifts, you would make so much more progress it would blow your mind.
And i'm sorry, but you are not an EXPERT just because you read a few posts on bodybuilding . com and go to the gym with your buddy for a few months and do some bench pressing and bicep curls. You need to have YEARS of Full Body Compound weight training and a great diet before you even THINK of isolating to the level that these people are recommending.
STOP reading T-Nation and BB.com articles that are made for advanced bodybuilders (often times targeted at those that are juicing), and stick to the basics for MONTHS, and better yet, YEARS.
There are Basic Functional Movements that will put more mass on, increase your strength dramatically, AND give you a extremely balanced aesthetic physique. These are:
Vertical Presses (Ex: Shoulder Press)
Horizontal Press (Ex: Pushups, Bench)
Vertical Pulls (Ex: Pullups)
Horizontal Pulls: (Ex: any type of Back Rows)
Squatting Motion (Squats, lunges)
Deadlift motion (Deadlift, good mornings.)
Core Stabilization (Planks. You think these are for women? Hold a plank for 3 minutes and then tell me what a manly man you are...pvssy)
Core Twisting movements (cable woodcutters, landmine 180's)
These motions are the way that your body was designed to operate and will activate EVERY major MUSCLE in your body.
STOP ISOLATING THE BICEPS. If your biceps are not KILLING from doing Pullups variations, rows,, you're not doing them properly. If your traps are not killing from doing deadlifts, rows, pullups, etc., you're not doing them properly. I see this toolbag in my gym every week doing bicep curls and he reminds me of this guy http://mm.gmstatic.net/72/645221.jpg . And HALF the kids at a college gym focus on two things: BENCH PRESS AND BICEP CURLS. It's because these are the "glory" muscles that you can see in the mirror. But guess what? These guys look TERRIBLE. They have rolled forward, hunched shoulders from lack of proper back and posterior chain training. They look like trolls. This is terrible both for you aesthetically, as well as hard on your thoracic spine and shoulders.
This leads me to my next point: BALANCE. You should NEVER be doing more ab exercises than you are doing lower back exercises. You should NEVER be doing more pushing movements than you are doing pulling movements. In fact, I would argue that your posterior chain (the muscles on the back of your body), are MUCH more important than those on the front, especially since they are frequently neglected.
You want to know what makes you look big? Back. Shoulders. Legs. Core. Incidentally enough, those are also the muscles that make you a big strong man able to pull tree stumps out of the fvcking ground. No one cares how big your biceps are if the rest of your upper body looks like sh!t and you have pencil legs. Theres nothing more intimidating than a guy who has giant lats and shoulders and glutes and legs and looks massive from behind.
You are NOT ready to start doing these complicated isolation movements. They are NOT SAFE. Not only are things like machines very hard on the joints, you also risk muscle imbalances. You are not experienced enough to recognize exactly how much biceps training you should do in relation to training for your lats, even if you think you are. If you train certain muscles in isolation more than others you will become imbalanced, which affects everything from your posture to your joints to your back health.
These basic movements are NATURE's way of allowing your muscle structure to grow itself in perfect balance and symmetry.
There is not ONE SINGLE REAL WORLD MOVEMENT that will activate your quadriceps without enacting other muscles like your hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, etc. So WHY the FVCK are you sitting on that single leg quad extension machine?
You feel you must isolate a single head in the quads to get those nice teardrop thighs that the girls love? Don't be ridiculous. Squat motherfvcker. Quit being a pvssy.
You need to do crunches to isolate the upper abs, and leg lifts to isolate the bottom, and another for the middle, and sides? What about your lower back health? The abs function to both stabilize and bend your body forward. If you overtrain these without bending your body the opposite way and strengthening those, you ARE going to have disc and lower back problems. Trust me. I've been there. TRAIN YOUR ENTIRE CORE. Stop isolating each part, because that's not how it's meant to operate.
Your muscle structure was not meant to operate in 45 different ways and isolate each muscle. Your muscles are DESIGNED to fire synergistically. If you isolate each muscle using machines, you will get stronger for each of those specific movements, but it is largely ineffective for translating to real world, compound strength. At this point i'm going to have haters screaming "so you're saying that the leg press doesn't help your squat!!" No. That's not what i'm saying. It will help to a degree. But you still have to work your way up and allow your new muscles and nervous system to get used to firing with the other muscles. And you risk growing your main superficial muscles without properly enacting the support of your connective tissue and smaller muscles, which paves the way for a whole host of injuries and joint problems.
COWBOY up. Legs Hurt. Compound Movements Hurt. Pullups Kill. That pain...that's called PROGRESS.
STOP reading bodybuilding guides and 5 and 6 day splits. Learn about STRENGTH and Balance. PERFECT a movement before moving on to the next one.
Many bodybuilders CHEAT frequently on their movements. I'm not trying to knock bodybuilding, i have massive respect. But they do. They swing those heavy weights all over the place. Wanna know what else? Many of these bodybuilders even step into the gym without a whole plethora of wraps, bandages, painkillers, ice packs, heat packs, drugs and stimulants to support their torn apart joints.
Focus on SAFE, controlled, perfect, slow movements for every exercise. Learn how to properly do each exercise. Drop the ego, drop the weight, and do it the right way. I know it's hard. Suck it up. It's going to hurt. It's easy to swing these weights around with poor form, but it's pretty damn hard to do them the right way.
Again, i'm not trying to trash bodybuilding (even though i do have some major problems with it). I have massive respect and grew up learning from people who were primarily into bodybuilding, which is why i know a lot about it and take such issue with how people go about it.
This nonsense has got to stop.
