LOL. Wait, why am I laughing? My friend and I started at separate gyms: I at a dingy 3rd story concrete block with no one around to tell me what to do, my friend at a Fitness First Health Club (which also has weights). He had a personal trainer on the first week, where I basically worked off information on the internet. I couldnt deadlift more than the bar, so I squatted with perfect form until my back strengthened up to a point where I could deadlift the bar, and so I did.
It took me 3 months to convince my friend to do deadlifts because his personal trainer told him it wasn’t a real exercise, and that you can snap your lower back muscles and tendons at ANY MOMENT when doing deadlifts, also they give you hernias. I was deadlifting 240lb by the time I convinced him to start doing deadlifts, and now almost a year later he is deadlifting much more than me because of his mesomorphic build and he is a BEAST (relative to what he used to be).
Determination, also, is a factor I consider better than any determinate information. This same friend had 2 accounts of improving himself beyond belief through the power of determination. In the time before he joined the ‘fitness club’, for his birthday he received a bench press and a bunch of weights. He struggled and bitched and grunted that weight just about 6 days a week all on his own, no spotter, no technique, no shit - he went from benching 66lb and weighing in at 264lb to benching 250lb, in one year, and thats when he thought ‘fuck this I am too fat’ and ran cardio 6 days a week, cut out all sodas and softdrinks and packet noodles, and lost 90lb!
THAT was when he joined Fitness First and his progress stalled. He has only recently been able to reverse the misconceptions that the fitness club told him, and bring back his determination, and now has lost another 20lb and put on 30lb of muscle. His journey is truly the path of a modern legend. He BROKE himself to achieve his GOALS, he walked through HELL, and then ROSE again to come out WISER than ever. Long may he live.