Things You Wish You Knew When You Started

Hahahaha I don’t wanna sound like those motivational guys but I really can’t stop training. I don’t know if training has become a habbit, therapy, or both. But what I do know is that the results have really improved my life greatly.

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man. you really have learned a lot. all of these are spot on.

you also reminded me of something that I dealt with for awhile and kinda still do. When it comes to arms, it’s really easy to believe they are smaller than they are, or lagging when they aren’t. Ive felt this for like, forever. At my height, weight, and build, my arms are probably VERY proportionate. But I just don’t see it when I look in the mirror. It’s one of those body image things that I think a lot of us, especially when we start out, have a problem with. Trusting that building up everything, and just putting in an equitable amount of arm work, is essential. For most people, direct arm work should be included, but it should be secondary, and it should be done with relatively modest weights. And to add to this, you SHOULD NOT be curling the heaviest dumbbells that you are able to. When I was 50 lbs lighter in bodyweight than I am right now, I remember curling 40’s. I pretty much don’t go over 30 now… sometimes 35’s. That should speak volumes.

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Damn, I need to keep this in mind so I don’t go wild with curls. I probably have been going a bit too heavy lol.

I always wondered why at the gym some big strong guys are doing some curls or raises or some db presses with really light weights. Now it all makes sense to me!

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raises too. I remember an old poster on here called Zraw saying you should be able to stop and reverse the movement at any point in the exercise. That dude had some of the best delts I’ve ever seen on a human

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He’s actually the guy I had in mind when I was typing this out. He said he basically never curled more than the 25’s.

I wish I’d never tested my deadlift 1RM after 6 months of 5/3/1. Yes, i did get a 75 pound pr, but if I had stayed with my first TM instead of taking it off my new 1RM, I have no doubt I’d be pulling well over 400. Instead I thought I knew better, and my deadlift has only recently began to creep up again, at 375 now. I wasted about 6 months with a TM that was WAY to heavy…

can’t sign off on this one, mate. testing your 1RM on any lift every 6 months or so has value, IF you can apply it correctly. I test mine much more frequently. I’m assuming you have some intention of competing in some form of strength competition, otherwise I don’t know why you would hit a 1RM deadlift. If that’s the case, you have to assess grip strength, and you have to feel what a max feels like, in preparation for competition.

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I wish I knew that spandex could make girls with less than ideal bodies look like Brazilian hotties with those big sexy asses
I could be retired already

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I usually use 8-12.5 kg for curls anything lower and its to light. Anything higher to heavy. But what about getting the biceps stronger do you do sets of 5 on curls or just slowly progress with sets of 10-12 etc?

Things I really wish I knew when I started

Progressive overload principles
How much more effective full body workouts are for beginners than splits
Volume
intensity
not taxing the crap out of my CNS system
Deadlifts
Abs are mostly diet and bodyfat
Jerking off doesn’t lower your testosterone levels

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haha…when I was younger, I was completely the opposite.

I wish I would have known:

That jerking off doesn’t INCREASE your testosterone levels
The balance between volume/intensity and recovery
How to ACTUALLY leave ego out of lifting

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I thought you were gonna say leave ego out of jerking.

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Well…I mean, that too. Quality over quantity… :joy:

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E[quote=“Benanything, post:52, topic:228139”]
The balance between volume/intensity and recovery
[/quote]

We’re talking about working out now, right?

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You’re wrong. The numbers I was using above were in lbs. Which means you’re curling the same weights I am. Do you REALLY think that makes sense? I’ve bench pressed nearly 400 lbs. There’s no possible world in which your accessory movements should be done at the same weights mine are. You need to do more work at a lower weight, and figure out how to achieve a pump without going as heavy as you are now. I’m gonna sound like a bodybuilder for a second… but focus on the mind-muscle connection. I could get a good workout with 6 or 7kg dumbbells if I needed to. I can make that lift difficult in the 12+ rep range by altering leverages, time under tension, rest periods, supersetting, etc. If you can’t do that, then you aren’t performing the lift well. If it takes going into higher rep ranges, even as much as 25 reps in your first set, to feel what you need to, that’s ok.

I would never go as low as 5 reps on curls. You have to start thinking about biceps work as an accessory movement. I’ve been curling the same weights for a few years, and continue to get stronger. You don’t have to follow a progression model on bicep curls and tricep extensions. In fact, it is inadvisable to do so. You will build bicep strength through other lifts, the heavy compounds. Rows, pull ups. Your primary work. Even deadlifts. Curls will help you build size, stability, and work capacity for that muscle group. For ME, I need my biceps to just be able to not tear when doing heavy shit. Bicep tears are common in stone lifting and deadlifting. So I focus on building size, and just getting some direct volume for them. But it’s such a limited muscle group in terms of how much pure strength can be built, that dedicated strength work for biceps generally makes little to no sense.

This is another one of those situations where you need to trust the process.

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I literally only do pushdowns overhead extensions and curls as prehab for beat up elbows not to get more beat up

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I wish I knew better than to go for a walk with a home made yoke that was 100lbs over my squat max the first time I ever tried a yoke walk. Ouch.

I wish I knew to rotate my lifts on my beginners 5x5 program so I didn’t end up with lagging upper body to this day. Same for 20 rep breathing squats program.

I wish I had never tried RFL. Lost 35 lbs in 2 months but screwed my metabolism. I wish I would’ve learned to keep calories as high as possible and exercise the weight off.

I wish I would have done 1 pullup for every 10 pushups back in my wrestling days. I sucked at pullups. So I ignored them. I still suck at them. I wish I could use the waybackmachine and threaten young me into pullups.

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I don’t even feel the weight if its super light. I dont know if this is how you do it but i do a slow concentric flexing the bicep hard and getting a good squeeze at the top then a slow eccentric and i get a nice pump rather then just moving the weight when i do a curl.[quote=“flipcollar, post:56, topic:228139”]
Do you REALLY think that makes sense?
[/quote]
It doesnt really but my bicep strength has always been good

try cables. Set the pulley at the bottom, stand back a little and really squeeze at the top. The line of pull’ll be pulling down and away from you so you’ll really have to squeeze to keep the biceps fully contracted.

It’s been my experience that once you find one exercise that gives you a good MMC it’s easier to get a good MMC on all other exercises

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I have a good mmc with my right bicep but hardly feel my bicep on my left. I have to focus a lot more to feel it working