T Nation

Biggest Training Mistake You've Made

Bodybuilding
#1

I’m just curious which mistakes (both training and in the kitchen) everyone feels they have made which hurt their progress the most. I feel that my biggest mistake which at one point greatly impeded my progress was once upon a time pushing my deadlift and my ego far past it’s limits and blowing out my back.

This halted essentially all lifting for around 4 months and to this day still impacts me. Some mornings I wake up and it still aches. This injury occured years ago and I am still seeing it’s effects.

Anyone else?

No Direct Arm Work
#2

When training with two other people, I allowed them to dictate training to the point that we were spending over 2hrs in the gym almost daily. Couple that with me eating like them (which wasn’t enough but they were my roommates at the time) and I actually started losing muscle mass and holding onto body fat.

That was the last time I trained with anyone else on a regular basis and also when I finally learned that your own training and eating is completely individual. You can not eat just like someone or train like them and expect the exact same progress.

However, things like that are not regrets for me. I now know where my limits are because I reached them.

The people who think they can avoid mistakes are the ones who will make the least progress.

#3

Falling victim to a retarded decision to “cut” from 205 to 175 in a short period of time.

Lost size, strength, and a lot of time.

Gotta think in the long run as opposed to “shit, summer is almost here…and i want abs now!”

That one thing had to happen for me to look at myself and say: “Dam your little and you just had a hard time benching 200lbs. Pussy”

From there on in I’ve only gained weight/strength.

#4

Putting to much pressure on my elbows during squats, developed tendinitis.

Using beginner gains on loosing weight…

almost forgot, buying into the whole “don’t train your biceps directly crowd”, BOY do i regret that one.

#5

-Worrying too much about how much weight I was lifting and not fully understanding how to stress a muscle.

-Not realizing that flat BB benches weren’t building size for me no matter how much weight I was moving. My shoulders and tris just took over too much, but I was scared to ditch the ‘king’ of the exercises.

-Not realizing that squatting 550 lbs was only making my ass bigger, and that my quads still looked like shit

-Getting caught up in the fear of overtraining storm, eventually realizing that I was so worried about overtraining, that I was actually undertraining.

-Fear of getting fat, and eating too ‘clean’ to actually make sufficient gains.

-Fear that a single day, or even a single meal that veered off of my diet would cause irreperable damage.

(just a few off the top of my head,… I’m sure I’ve made LOTS more mistakes -lol)

S

#6

My biggest mistake was listening to small authors tell me how to get big. If you want to get big, you need to listen to the big people.

#7

Not eating enough in the first months of training.

#8

My number one mistake, which I owe X for saving me from, is not eating enough.

X may not remember, but on my old user (I’m the guy who started the BB Bunker), I pm’ed X about eating, and he told me to eat a damn burger. X even told me specifically what he does to his burgers to cut back on grease.

Needless to say, thanks for X’s kick in the ass and showing me what mistake I made, I’m now closing in on 200lbs at 5’6, and still growing.

#9

The biggest mistake i’ve made and still make on occasion is:

  • overtraining. stressing my body out so much that i get sick or pull muscles.

which leads to my next two favorite things:

-loss in muscle mass and strength-

-other than that losing weight too fast for grappling tounrnaments is always a bitch.

#10

Not allowing myself enough recovery time in between training sessions.

During college, I lifting M-F and “rested” on the weekend. After I graduated, I switched to a 3 day on, 1 day off, 2 day on, 1 day off regiment.

Staggering my training days in this way have allowed for more efficient use of my recovery time, and my strength and size gains have been coming much quicker since.

#11

[quote]Da Vinci wrote:
I’m just curious which mistakes (both training and in the kitchen) everyone feels they have made which hurt their progress the most. I feel that my biggest mistake which at one point greatly impeded my progress was once upon a time pushing my deadlift and my ego far past it’s limits and blowing out my back.

This halted essentially all lifting for around 4 months and to this day still impacts me. Some mornings I wake up and it still aches. This injury occured years ago and I am still seeing it’s effects.

Anyone else?[/quote]

Mine is similer to yours… I went and trained when I was feeling under the weather and while deadlifting let my form slip and blew out my back…

#12

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
-Worrying too much about how much weight I was lifting and not fully understanding how to stress a muscle.

-Fear that a single day, or even a single meal that veered off of my diet would cause irreperable damage.

[/quote]

Im guilty of those two. I also didn’t realize how many calories it takes for me to grow and I wish I just started weight training earlier on in my life.
With all that said, I enjoy my “mistakes”, because I’ve learned through experience and Im stilling learning. Thats whats cool about this all.

#13

spending two years too long in a gym that i had outgrown.

#14

Using weights that were too heavy for me to work with good form through the full range of motion. I didn’t hurt myself, but it made it impossible to progress.

#15

  • Not checking the ego at the door.

  • being 15 and thinking i needed to train 2x a day 6 days a week like arnold

  • being young and not looking at the big picture

  • I think another problem that happens alot is people switching routines - always looking for the next best thing. Instead of worrying about just sticking to what works for them and pushing that for as long as they continue to make progress.

#16

Switching routines too often.

Loving training too much. I still suffer from this at times. I will train sometimes with far too much volume, intensity, and frequency to the point of making little to no progress and developing overuse injuries.

#17

  • Not deadlifting until over five years in. Wish I had started doing this sooner, both for gains and because it’s become my favorite lift.

  • Not eating enough the first couple years. Figured it out thanks to this place (back when it was T-Mag and weekly), but cost me some mass no question.

  • Getting tendinitis nine months ago from either pullup form or doing 1RM curls (Poliquin’s max curls drop set that was in one of those weekly emails a year back). Still nags, could be a worse problem down the line.

#18

Eating too much shitty food in a misguided effort to bulk when I was already fat.

#19

Stopped lifting for a pretty long period of time after my athletic endeavors had ended, muscle memory helped me get back quite a bit pretty quickly but I shouldn’t have lost anything in the first place. It’s a what if of sorts but I know I’d be a decent amount larger now if I hadn’t let myself stop because all I trained for at the time was sport.

#20

-Wasting a year on working only my upper body without eating enough.

-Steady-state cardio + starving myself.

-Wasting years on trying to become lean, starving myself and developing an eating disorder, as well as fucking up my metabolism.

-Thinking that bulking means “eat whatever you fucking want,” e.g. ice cream shakes.

-Pussying out on a bulk after 2-3 weeks in.