Biggest Mistake a Beginner Can Make

Bigger Stronger Leaner
41

[quote]Just_Matt wrote:

[quote]esskay wrote:
“The biggest mistake a beginner can make is taking advice from other beginners online”
-Jim Wendler

What do you guys think?[/quote]
I wonder why someone that’s been a member for three months with zero posts went mad today in the beginners forum giving advice? Then started this post asking this question about exactly that.

The point is excellent though, the number of people that were asking stupid, easily researched questions a month ago that now have input on every thread here is ridiculous.

[/quote]

actually I forgot I had an account here until Dave Tate mentioned to me something about Jim frequenting this forum or something, I dont remember, but came here looking to see if he does indeed post here.

42

studying instead of getting in the gym

43

[quote]Painsama wrote:
Listening to worried parents, i have been training for about 8 months my bench press max is at 275 my dad told me the other day stop there or i would “injure myself”. He also told me that smith machines “force you into the correct posture”.

Now i know with the bench press I could injure my shoulders if all i ever do is press but i have been doing weighted pullups and rows along with deads and sqauts soooooo i think im pretty balanced. And the smith machine comment was complete crap…idk some of my other freinds have heard comments like this. Its like when your parents hear that your lifting anything over 200 they think your going to get injured automatically.[/quote]

I have this problem with my own father. As soon as I mention anything about programming theory or lifting in general, he loves to chime in with his own advice. Problem is, he has never lifted a weight in his life.

And tucking your elbows a bit on the bench should help avoid shoulder problems. Also, doing rear delt work to balance it out works as pre-hab for shoulder health.

44

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

There’s some moronic culture around gyms these days to not ask the biggest guy in the gym, as if they just woke up big one day.
[/quote]

Oh, it’s all over this site too. I can’t even count the number of times people have acted like some big guy was born that way so his advice doesn’t mean anything.

I don’t know very many people who are truly huge who got that way by accident.[/quote]

not sure if I really have a point here… but the gym I go to (LA Fitness Wayne NJ) has a reputation for some of the big guys using steroids. couple that with the lack of heavy true ATC squatting and proper deadlifting here and I’m not sure how good the advice would be.

granted, 40mg of D-Bol a day doesn’t make you big by itself but then I’m not really sure who’s juicing and whose advice is good in the first place. so I get my advice from here because at least there is some consensus on whose advice is good and whose isn’t.

for instance one of the gym staff is this huge black guy who I’ve seen pulling 4 plates a side for reps… but he was jackhammering them. otoh the other day I saw a younger guy probably early 20’s built like a beer keg, also pulled 4 plates a side for 3 or 4 reps but he re-set after every rep.

so in this case is the first guy’s advice valid because he’s bigger (could be genetics) or the second guy because his form seems better?

that aside, thanks to mr. popular and everyone else who has given me good advice and showed me that reading all the articles in the world does not mean you know anything. [/quote]

Dont get your advice from random people in the gym.

And just because you dont understand the reasoning behind someone’s form does not mean its wrong. The guy doing his pulls touch-and-go could have been training for time under tension, while the other guy was doing it more powerlifting style.

45

I think more importantly a beginner should have read up enough good articles and watched enough good videos on his own to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.

46

[quote]nyh wrote:
I think more importantly a beginner should have read up enough good articles and watched enough good videos on his own to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.[/quote]

Have you read any of this thread?

No, no no.

A fucking beginner should keep his and HER fucking mouth shut until he/she has spent enough TIME UNDER THE BAR to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.

FUCK. What did you fucking people do before the internet was available? Die of consumption?

The truth isn’t in a fucking article. The truth is in the callous on your palm, the truth is in the chalk dust in your nose, the truth is in you and your ability.

Also:
The OP of this thread has been going wild in this section since posting this, and at this point is getting obvious he is just a troll.

Beginners, like OP, need to stop giving other fucking beginner advice, shit. Maybe more vets woudl post here if they didn’t have to fight through pages of bullshit posts from people that have read starting strength more times than they have lifted at this point.

47

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]nyh wrote:
I think more importantly a beginner should have read up enough good articles and watched enough good videos on his own to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.[/quote]

Have you read any of this thread?

No, no no.

A fucking beginner should keep his and HER fucking mouth shut until he/she has spent enough TIME UNDER THE BAR to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.

FUCK. What did you fucking people do before the internet was available? Die of consumption?

The truth isn’t in a fucking article. The truth is in the callous on your palm, the truth is in the chalk dust in your nose, the truth is in you and your ability.

Also:
The OP of this thread has been going wild in this section since posting this, and at this point is getting obvious he is just a troll.

Beginners, like OP, need to stop giving other fucking beginner advice, shit. Maybe more vets woudl post here if they didn’t have to fight through pages of bullshit posts from people that have read starting strength more times than they have lifted at this point.

[/quote]

Bingo.

For all the article reading going on around here, where the fuck is all the muscle at?

48

Biggest mistake: Reading too much shit, posting too much, doing precious little.

That goes for training, education, work and living life.

49

^^ That’s why people are always surprised when you actually get things done and reach goals. They’re that used to people failing, giving up or not even getting to it in the first place (but will be happy talking about it for hours on end lol)

50

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]nyh wrote:
I think more importantly a beginner should have read up enough good articles and watched enough good videos on his own to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.[/quote]

Have you read any of this thread?

No, no no.

A fucking beginner should keep his and HER fucking mouth shut until he/she has spent enough TIME UNDER THE BAR to differentiate what is bullshit advice and what is not.

FUCK. What did you fucking people do before the internet was available? Die of consumption?

The truth isn’t in a fucking article. The truth is in the callous on your palm, the truth is in the chalk dust in your nose, the truth is in you and your ability.

Also:
The OP of this thread has been going wild in this section since posting this, and at this point is getting obvious he is just a troll.

Beginners, like OP, need to stop giving other fucking beginner advice, shit. Maybe more vets woudl post here if they didn’t have to fight through pages of bullshit posts from people that have read starting strength more times than they have lifted at this point.
[/quote]

That goes without saying. But the thing is that I was training in every wrong way possible (following friends’ routines in the gym - which is technically considered being UNDER THE BAR) and I would like to think that finding out about T-Nation and Elitefts was the best thing that ever happened in terms of training right.

So when my friend next tells me there is no need to bring the bar down to my chest when benching, I know better. When he squats with the smith machine, I do it in the squat rack. When he does countless sets of curls, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my time on those. I know educating myself has helped me because I used to do all of the above.

51

^?

The beginners here think they know too much.

I didn’t touch my chest with the bar when doing barbell presses. In fact, many bodybuilders quit doing the barbell bench after a certain level of development is reached because they see less progress than with dumbbells and machines.

Most of the people who even claim huge bench numbers here don’t have bigger chests.

52

[quote]nyh wrote:
When he does countless sets of curls, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my time on those.
[/quote]

What? You shouldnt be doing curls?

53

[quote]nyh wrote:
When he does countless sets of curls, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my time on those.[/quote]

Yeah…because I “wasted” all of that time spent doing biceps curls.

You don’t seem to know this as well as you think you do.

54

“The truth isn’t in a fucking article. The truth is in the callous on your palm, the truth is in the chalk dust in your nose, the truth is in you and your ability.”

this belongs on a t-shirt.

55

[quote]nyh wrote:
So when my friend next tells me there is no need to bring the bar down to my chest when benching, I know better. When he squats with the smith machine, I do it in the squat rack. When he does countless sets of curls, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my time on those. I know educating myself has helped me because I used to do all of the above.[/quote]

Honest question:

What results do you have because of all this shit you think you know now?

56

[quote]Professor X wrote:
^?

The beginners here think they know too much.

I didn’t touch my chest with the bar when doing barbell presses. In fact, many bodybuilders quit doing the barbell bench after a certain level of development is reached because they see less progress than with dumbbells and machines.

Most of the people who even claim huge bench numbers here don’t have bigger chests.[/quote]

Yup, everyone does the bench press because they want a big chest. Yup.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]nyh wrote:
So when my friend next tells me there is no need to bring the bar down to my chest when benching, I know better. When he squats with the smith machine, I do it in the squat rack. When he does countless sets of curls, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my time on those. I know educating myself has helped me because I used to do all of the above.[/quote]

Honest question:

What results do you have because of all this shit you think you know now?

[/quote]

Probably not as much as you, but I would like to think I prefer the way my training is going right now instead of how it used to be.

And regarding curls, they definitely have their place in a routine but what is the fucking point of a 120 pound guy dedicating a whole day to curls? Yeap, that was me a year ago.

Some of you guys need to chill. Educating yourself can never be a bad thing. I read, I know what applies to me at my level and what doesn’t, and I apply. That’s it.

I bench 1.25x my bodyweight, squat 1.5x, and deadlift 2x. Piss weak compared to some of you guys here, but if I never came across articles here or Elitefts a few months ago how would I even begin to know how to lift properly? Learning from my friends?

My point is that there is information out there which is really helpful for beginners and much more which is not. Granted people got big and strong before the Internet even existed but if I didn’t watch So You Think You Can Bench or Squat on Youtube, I would have really spent a much longer time trying to figure it out for myself. That is probably as close I can get to attending an EFS Learn to Train seminar. Why do you think people attend these seminars?

57

[quote]nyh wrote:

Yup, everyone does the bench press because they want a big chest. Yup.
[/quote]

…

58

Personally my chest has gotten smaller over the last 50-75 pounds on my bench progress. And not from fat loss either, I’ve also added some chub since then.

Then again my appearance goals are “I don’t want to be a scrawny twig or a fat blob” Anything past that is just extra.

59

I’d say a basic lack of training consistency is the number one error.

60

Listening to bullshit myths.

Day in, day out, I have to hear this bullshit and attempt to dispel it.

Squats are bad for the knees
Deadlifts hurt your lower back
Your body can only absorb 20-30 g’s of p at a time
Shoulder presses are bad for your rotator cuff
Fish oil is bad for you
Bench press til your upper arms are parallel
Leg extensions are all you have to do for quads
Creatine is bad for your kidneys
I do cardio so I dont have to do calves
I do a different workout every time so my muscles are confused
I’m turning my fat into muscle
How do I build muscle but lose weight at the same time

Losing my patience.