[quote]alit4 wrote:
that’s probably a good plan, because you ain’t gonna get much stronger off your training principles, that’s for certain.[/quote]
Totally agreed. I am not going to get strong because I am not training to get strong. I was stronger when I used to do all the compounds. I cannot stand people who equivocate and bullshit their way into believing that they are going to develop multiple opposing qualities at the same time. I deal with this a lot because newbies come in with goals like “I want to lose the spare tire, get stronger, improve cardio, be more flexible, have more energy”. They want a kitchen sink program. They want to do a totally different routine each time they come in. Babysitter trainers cater to people like that. I despise them.
I am a staunch opponent of cross training. I think it’s all marketing.
I have found more quotes and anecdotes to add to the thread.
==
“I’m tired of seeing young kids with good potential ? who are lean and have nice shapes to start with ? ruin their bodies by following the bulking advice from Internet ‘gurus’ who tell them to eat as much food as they can, even junk food. All this will accomplish is helping them add heaps of fat to their lean bodies.” - Christian Thibaudeau
“Bulking-up diet programs won’t produce any more muscle growth than ingesting an ideal amount of nutrients. Sorry, but it’s simply not possible to force additional muscle growth by overfeeding.” - Poliquin
"There are many ways to improve performance without improving dramatically on the load:
I can attest that this style of training can get your legs big.
I prefer to hoist heavy weights when training but have to admit, I do not really look like a bodybuilder, I look more like a big athlete." - IamMarqaos, T-Nation
I am a person who has the problem of continually getting stronger, but not really looking like it! I have to gain a lot of strength to add a little muscle size. This article came at the right time for me b/c I just started doing higher reps. for lower body instead of trying to get stronger and stronger. It seems to be working. -Heartandsoul317, T-Nation
Dave Tate: Let’s say a bodybuilder’s program says three sets of eight. He reaches eight and it feels good, so he racks it. What the fuck? He’s there to break the muscle down. Did he have two more in him? Then he should do them, no matter what the “program” says. I’m not saying you need to train to failure all the time, but you left two reps on the table when the goal is to break the muscle down. In my mind, you just wasted a set.
Dave Tate: For powerlifting, a lot of isolation work ? concentration curls and shit like that ? isn’t going to do a whole lot. For someone trying to build hypertrophy though, whose main function isn’t going to be strength, I think movements like that are extremely important.
Soreness is as good as anything else to show you where to focus your assistance training. - Jack Reape, T-Nation
Myth: You should never do static stretches before weight training.
Mythbuster: Mike Boyle
Early in my training career, whenever we sent one of our athletes to physical therapy, we were told he needed to stretch more. We eventually conceded the point, and added pre-workout static stretching. Almost immediately, we saw a significant drop in long-term injuries.
If you look at how the body works, I think any reasonable person would see it’s nearly impossible to work the core well enough with exercises like squats and deadlifts…I still think you need some isolation work for your core. - Mike Boyle
Say I’m training two high school kids. One’s a cornerback on the football team, and one’s a center fielder on the baseball team. Both are fast and would benefit by being even faster. Both would benefit by being stronger and developing more power. Both want to add some muscular size, but not at the expense of their speed or agility. Do I train them differently, even though their goals are basically the same?
In the most fundamental sense, the answer is no. The best methods to develop speed and power are somewhat universal. - Mike Boyle
Two of the big things we are doing over here involve the use of injectable L-Carnosine, and intravenous infusions of Vitamin-C. - Poliquin
Well, let me tell you this: True overtraining is exceptionally rare. In all my life as an athlete and coach, I’ve only seen two real cases of overtraining, and in both the guys were Olympians training over 30 hours per week under tremendous psychological stress.
In reality, most elite athletes train over 20 hours per week, with some even hitting the 40-hour mark. Not all of this is strength training; speed and agility work, conditioning, and skill practices are also on the menu. -CT
Equipment and leverages are a huge part of powerlifting. Lifters who learn this too early often wind up fat and weak. Lifters who learn this too late wind up playing catch-up as they lose to lifters who are more technically proficient, but not as strong. As is the case with many things in life, you need to find a happy medium.
“An often overlooked function of the lifting belt is the proprioceptive feedback it provides, telling the body about tightness and position because of its pattern of contact with the skin. Even when worn loosely it performs this function.” - Mark Rippetoe
The fact is that if someone struggles in a basic, isolated setting, they’re going to have a hard time integrating those muscles into a nice, clean movement pattern under load. -Mike Robertson
In training, the only thing that matters is the result. It doesn’t matter what used to happen, what you think should happen, what a textbook tells you is happening, what the experts say, or what a bunch of borderline-retarded pencildicks on a forum post about. - Cosgrove
= “Methods are many, principles are few
Methods may change, but principles never do.”
Let me say something here about programming. We all know there are different aspects to program development, ranging from (but not limited to) flexibility, strength, endurance, mobility, pre-habilitation, and all their subcomponents such as strength-speed, strength-endurance, dynamic flexibility and a host of others. The thing most people seem to miss is you can’t have it all. -Dave Tate
No athlete has ever gotten good training like that. - Poliquin on cross training
I believe the old adage that says you can’t deadlift heavy and well. It’s true in my experience. If you don’t believe it, go to a powerlifting meet, and pay attention to the lifters when the barbell hits the floor.
What you see 90 percent of the time is leg extension, accompanied by lumbar flexion. This is then followed by an old-school version of the straight-leg deadlift. It makes you cringe to watch. I just can’t see my athletes doing it. -Mike Boyle
Athletes lift weights, bodybuilders contract their muscles against resistance.
“Watching a man working out properly is almost frightening; the intensity of effort is so great that the subject’s entire body is shaking, his face will turn dark red or even purple and both breathing and heart action will be increased at least 100%, and frequently far more than that.” -Arthur Jones