Top Tips for Getting Bigger Stronger Leaner

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Recently I have been reading Never Let Go by Dan John, a great read for any of you who like me enjoy reading about the hobby I love. This book is a collection of articles and stories and has a wealth of great information and tips about training, nutrition and life. In the book Dan talks about The Classic Top 10 Tips for athletes and lists them out. In fact, throughout the book Dan lists a lot of things, he really does love a good list.

So I figured why not see what everyone else has on their list of Top Tips. Now these don’t need to be specifically for athletes, lets broaden it a little to tips for anyone wanting to get the most out of training with weights, no matter what the goal. Now I know 10 things may be a stretch for some, and probably not enough for a couple of you. But lets narrow it down to 3 top tips. What have you got?

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I have found hundreds of ways to not become bigger stronger or leaner. Almost finished with my list of things that don’t work. Should be starting on the new list of things that do work any day now.

Will report back. Eventually.

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  1. Be brutally honest with yourself. The reason you aren’t getting ‘bigger’ or ‘stronger’ or ‘leaner’ is almost certainly always you. It is. You know it.
    Identify and expose your weaknesses, then formulate a plan to fix them.

  2. Set actual goals that mean something to you, and then assess if your plan is actually conducive to making that happen. If it is not, see point one.

  3. Finish the fucking program. For the love of God.

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  1. Don’t over think this. There is SO much info out there it is easy to get caught up in a tidal wave of BS. Too many people majoring in the minors.

  2. Set small achievable goals, conquer them, set some more. Before you know it, you have conquered a big goal.
    Nothing worse than the bitter taste of failure.

  3. Stop worrying about what everybody else is doing. Do what’s best for you. Pick a style of training you like and run with. If you get burnt out, pick something different for a while. It’s basically all the same thing. Pick up heavy object, put it down, pick it up again.

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1)Focus on getting strong
2)Gain weight or nothing else matters
3)High intensity cardio saves lives

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I likes this one. Definitely one beginners need to hear.

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Very good advice chicken, when we start out training it is so easy to get caught up in the end destination and then to be demotivated when we don’t perceive progress. Setting small goals over time really adds up to something much bigger.

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I like this one. This sits well with some simple advise that I normally give which is “eat more food”

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Paul Kelso summed it up well with “eat to gain or don’t bother to train”

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Love this one mate.

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Absolute winner right here.

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From several opinions I understand that if you do not eat too much (and gain weight - because nothing else mattered) there is no point in training.
Honestly, for the first time I see such an opinion. I’m surprised he’s finding support. Maybe it will be true (and it certainly is true) if the goal is only to increase strength and muscle mass. But what to do those who want to lose weight. Obviously, they think they should stop training, because it doesn’t make sense.
Apart from that, it has been proven that in certain cases strength also increases with weight loss.
Maybe I did not understand and keep in mind to eat quality food, which is not necessarily in excess. Anyway, I want to lose weight, I will eat a deficit and I will not stop training, because it makes sense to me :slight_smile:

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“Don’t get fat in the first place” Art Devany

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Well, I forgot to follow this advice :slight_smile: And the only solution from here on out is transformation 
 or as they like to call it - recomposition. As much as you can, so much.

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I prefer a focused fat loss approach. More Dan John goodies “The goal is to keep the goal the goal”

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This is a gem that I recently discovered from his book. Attack fat loss hard and fast, then get back to being awesome.

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If you read the quote again it says eat to “gain”. It doesn’t specifically say gain weight and is from an author of a book about powerlifting and getting strong as hell. Read in context it makes complete sense. If you are morbidly obese and need to lose weight to get stronger then this quote still applies. Eat to gain for that person would mean to stop eating crap and eat to support their training.

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See point 1 :slight_smile:

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Also point 1.1 would be 'listen to @T3hPwnisher ’

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My opinion was not limited to this advice. It included the recommendation that nothing but weight gain matters. For me and my condition, the scale is much more important to show less weight, to be strong and resilient, even with smaller muscles. But I’m not light weight and muscleless. This advice will apply in full force, that if you are underweight, all you need to do is train and increase your muscle mass. Which is really the main thing and the rest will not matter to you and your progress. This recommendation simply does not apply to everyone. This is my opinion :slight_smile:
Otherwise, I agree that for a certain purpose you need a certain diet, even if you are in deficit. There can be no dispute on this issue.