Basics first. Behind the back cable laterals, smith machine front squats, and decline dumbbell flyes should’ve lost to militaries, leg press, and dips.
1: Focus mostly on hitting set/rep maxes as opposed to 10 rep or 3 rep maxes etc
2: Consume much more veg, water & fibrous foods.
3: Make Pull-ups & squats your main exercises to focus for at least the first 2 years of training.
4: Monitor progress mostly in terms of monthly shirtless pics & weight lifted etc
5: Micro-load…like a motherfucker!!!
If you think someone else is training wrong, and they are a lot farther along than you, it’s you who’s training wrong.
Play a sport. It doesn’t have to be football either; whatever you think you’ll enjoy the most, not what is the most popular. It’s better to be awesome & want to be playing a sport you love, than be mediocre at a popular one you hate playing.
You won’t find a perfect program, and please, please don’t make one of your own or “improve” upon it (see #1). Just pick one you like & run with it - as long as you are pushing, pulling, using your legs, and using your lungs.
treat the bench press as a more technically difficult lift that is more likely to injure you than a deadlift. Because it is.
the 140 lbs guy in the gym (me) does not know more about the ‘meathead’ who’s had experience on an actual bodybuilding stage. books do not trump a decade or more of experience.
overhead pressing is really, really important. do it at least as much as you bench press, regardless of your current goals. you’ll value the mobility you attain/keep in the long run.
there is no perfect program, and there is no ideal way to chase gains. High reps can support strength gains and you can still get bigger lifting less than 5 reps in a set regularly. Size and strength will go hand in hand for the better part of one’s lifting career, regardless of programming.
consistency over the course of months and years is what produces change. trust the process.
Practise technique often even with no weights
Eat clean
Sticking to proigramms even suboptimal ones trumps not doing so.
Proven supplements can be very effective used periodically ( near year round) I…e creatine. , glutamine , BCCAs esp creatine though .
True play sport early (sprinting, short runs are good for starting strength)
Keep it varied and use periodic breaks even months occasionally in training/
Make training priority #1. This doesn’t mean it is the most important thing to you but it does mean training makes you better at those important things.
Don’t stop
It’s better to add 90 minutes reading (not training related) to your week than it is to add an extra day training
Don’t do sets of pull-ups multiple times per day everyday for extended periods of time or you’ll screw up your shoulder forlife. I have other injuries but I regret nothing except this because it was just dumb. Point is, some form of injury is unavoidable eventually so make sure that it happens doing something worth the tradeoff.