Gauging Progress

[llessuresaj]

Absolutely Perfect.

[freezerdude]

I have read through a number of posts here and I realize that there are a number of questions and concerns regaurding training and developing lean tissue. Im going to post a thread here that I wrote on a different board and hopefully this will help a few people out.

I dont know how often I will be able to post here but those that know me can testify for my love of this sport. I realize my passion comes out a little rough sometimes but its just due to where I have come from in this endevor. It drives me insane to see people waste their time in the gym..........and believe me............90% of people do. I love to help and I love to see people win so I apologize in advance for being a little rough around the edges but like I said........its just because I care. When I see these same mistakes from people EVERY SINGLE DAY and read about them EVERY SINGLE DAY you start to get a little hard nosed about things..........but hey, alot of people need that!!

Anyway..........hope this post helps..........

I've been meaning to write this for awhile but lately there seems to be alot of confusion here regaurding different ways to build muscle. The other day V.O. wrote something that reminded me about this and I think it's time to put this out here so we can all make better progress.

I have read a ton of stuff where people are getting caught up in targeting different parts of your muscle, using different angles, shocking your muscles for growth, changing things up for growth, toning and defining your muscles and gauging progress by how sore you get. I would like to address each one of these ideas and see if I cant simplify a few things to make life much easier on everyone.

Hitting a muscle from different angles.
Im going to cover hitting your muscles from different angles and targeting different areas of the same muscle in the same breath here because they tie into one another so much. Like I said this was brought up in another post the other day and it was pretty much explained there but your muscle is shaped the way it is and there really is not much you can do other than make it bigger or smaller. You see so many people who want the arms or the chest of their favorite bodybuilder so they mimic all the exercises they do because they think it will make it look like that person. Now dont confuse this with working with lagging bodyparts, this is something very different. What this is, is where people do multiple movements in attempts to change the way that particular muscle looks. You have insertion points and whatever that muscle looks like between those points is what it is. Find a handful of exercises that ''YOU'' respond to the best and stick with those. Obviously the compound movements work best. Stick with the movements that you are able to use the most weight with and become as strong as you possibly can with those movements. Forget that nonsence of trying to get a better biceps peak with concentration curls or any of that stuff. Yes your tri's have three heads and your shoulders have three heads and your back has some different insertion points but you still cannot change that particular muscle head or area. Unless your competing........forget about laterals. Do big presses. Unless your competing........forget about extensions. Do big presses.

Shocking the Muscles and Changing things up.
Wow.........where do I start with this. How about this.......STOP IT!!!!! Please someone explain to me the logic behind changing things up or ''shocking'' the muscles. You want to know how to shock the muscle..........USE MORE WEIGHT THAN LAST TIME!!! I swear, people think that by doing drop sets or forced reps or a different exercise everytime they train that their muscles will be like ''Whoa!!!! this is so different we better grow!'' Why would they grow??? You havent done anything to make them grow. You see it at every gym you go to, and these guys look the same month after month, year after year. People change things up with no reason other than to change. Change things up when you stop progressing on a certain movement and thats it. Do you not think that if you just took a few different big chest pressing movements and progressed on each one as long as you could then switched it out for the next and just kept hammering away on those few presses and adding a few pounds to the bar each workout you would'nt have a massive chest in 3 years??? Man.........dont make this harder than it has to be. Keep progressing on big compound movements and eat and you will grow.

Toning and defining your muscles.
This is easy.........lose fat. There is no such thing as toning or defining your muscles. This goes back to the targeting different areas of your muscles and using different angles. You can do two things to your muscles..........make them bigger or make them smaller and thats about it. Doing kickbacks will not ''define'' your triceps............they will only make me laugh at you. Doing concentration curls will not ''bring out that peak''.............they will only make me glad your not taking up room in the power rack. You want nice tone, hard, defined granite like abs???? LOSE FAT!

Muscle Soreness.
Finally muscle soreness. I love how everyone braggs about how they are sore for 3 and 4 days after a workout and they think because of that one factor alone they actually accomplished something. Yeah, you accomplished something alright..........you made it take that much longer before you can workout again because you caused so much trauma to your muscles it takes a week and a half to freakin heal. Why not just do a few sets for each large muscle group and add weight each time and actually grow a little bit. Muscle soreness in not a direct indicator of growth..........its an indicator of trauma, and thats it! Why do you want to destroy your muscle??? Just stimulate it enough to have to compensate a little bit so you can hit it again even sooner. There are actually people out there who grow off big volume.......notyou56 is one of them and he is a beast but anyone out there reading this who does high volume, I challange you. Cut your routine in half and forget about being sore the next day and just keep adding weight to those few sets and I gaurentee you will get better results. I know why everyone trains with 10 to 15 to 20 sets perbodypart...........because they dont feel sore if they dont and they feel like if they are not sore they did not get in a good workout. Soreness means nothing. Stop gauging your progress by how sore you are and instead start gauging your progress by your log book and how much more weight you moved for 10 reps today than you did for 10 reps a month ago.

I've mentioned this before........building muscle is very simple. So many people complicate the crap out of this whole thing and just end up wasting months and years jumping around from one thing to the next trying to figure this thing out. Stop over thinking this stuff.........stick with the basic compound movements and just add a little more weight every time you can and your going to grow. I dont care if you do my routine or the latest, greatest thing going in all the magizines.......just add a little more weight each time and it will happen.

I think people think that if the dont get results in the first week or two they do something else thinking that will be the answer to their problems. Let me share a little secret with you............there is no secret. Just keep progressing on the same old basic movements, I dont even care if you get fired up about it, you dont even have to be passionate, just go through the motions and your going to get big wether you want to or not!

Just wanted to thank Bosshogg! I'm new to this forum and as everone know not many people want to help anyone thats's a newby on here!!!! But I have Learned more from this thread that any other one that I have read on here in the past week or more, I used to be Hardcore and worked out for 10 years when i was younger but had a few accidents and Stopped. But I'm about to turn 42 and trying to get Going again and I'm hoping this forum will help me acheive my Goals.. Once Again I would Like to thank Bosshogg for his time Posting this thread!
Danny

[Hard2Gain]

You will be surprised how far this type of workout will take you. I am currently doing a workout of his. I have been doing it for about 7 weeks now. You can read a little bit about it on my thread (first timers training log) towards the last page or so of the thread. If you have any quesitons feel free to PM me. I try to check this site about once a day depending on my schedule.

[dannothemanno]

Ageee with everything the boss said. As in all things in life, we humans like to complicate the ass out of them untill we end up going round in circles chasing our own tail getting nowhere. I'm sure everyone has head the old saying "weights work best", well another is "basics work best", that is heavy compound movements, ie squat, deadlift, benchpress, military press, chins. If you wanna get big then you have to train big (with the compound movements), eat big and sleep big and thats all there is to it. I see so many guys in the gym doing the same weights for the same reps for months on end!!!!! What a waste of effort!!!! You guys know those tiny little 1/4lb plates that no one (specially the skinny/small lifters) use? Well they should be your best friend in the whole gym. You hit your max weight and get to your target rep, then add those little suckers for an extra half pound on the bar. Do this EVERY time you train and hey guess what, your adding weight, making your muscles grow to lift that extra weight. The human body is intrinsically lazy in that it will ADAPT to the stress (weightlifting) of the same weight and stop growing. Its a survival thing for our bodies, but to get bigger we have to always increase our weight/reps. Thats why weightlifting is such a mind game and we must train our minds as much as our muscles. The mind gives out before the body and it will try its best to persuade us NOT to increase the weight or do that extra rep, but we need to overcome that and strenghten our mind more than our body. You can tell the serious lifters in the gym, they're the ones with the training diary. Always checking to see how many reps they last did on squat, bench or whatever and what weight, then setting the goal to improve that either with one rep (or more ) of the same weight, or the same reps with extra weight (thats where those tiny little plates come in). Thats why those guys are making such good gains, year in year out. And until we hav'nt mastered this basic workout principle, we shouldnt be taking or even thinking about taking any juice. The same applies to diet, master diet and the above training styles, get as many gains as humanly possible, THEN look at juice if thats what you want to do.

[dannothemanno]

Some of the best off cycle gains I ever made were with the 3 day split, each bodypart once per week, with heavy compound movements as the basic, then throw in some isolations for the same bodypart. Really bust your ass with mid reps (5 to7) with the heaviest weights you can handle while maintaining good form, drive those muscles to their limit. Then on the second week, and this is the hard part for a lot of people, take the whole week off! Yeah thats right, only workout every second week. Watch your strength go thru the roof! You will pack on great solid muscle with this. We need to allow our muscles to recover FULLY before hitting that same group, otherwise its like 10 steps forward 9.99 back.... Steroids have the great benefit of helping our bodies to recover dramatically faster, so we can workout more often, recover faster and thus grow bigger faster. On cycle I personally can do a 4 day split, each bodypart twice per week (heavy compounds as the basis) and pack on the size and strength, but off cycle, I need a weeks rest, otherwise I'm just spinning my wheels.
Food for thought, everyone is different, but it works well for me. And BTW, IMO, one of the most damaging thing new lifters can do is read all the mags and get sucked into the latest "wonder routine" or the latest "wonder supplement", its mostly just rubbish. Do the basics as hard and heavy as you can, eat like youve never eaten before, sleep as much as possible and you will grow. Not rocket science.

[dane5040]

thanks bro

[deathcloud]

deff going to be trying this soon. I am fully resting my body and making sure that I will be ready to hit it with maximum intensity.

Yes I will be "THAT GUY" that has his stopwatch and little journal and pen writing down everything. I will keep yall posted on my gains and such. maybe start a thread or something showing the week to week improvements.

[dannothemanno]

Training log is a MUST!
Stopwatch, not so much. Rest between sets will depend on your cardio fitness. When you have enough wind back to do the next set, with full weight, to max reps, THATS how long it takes. If it takes any more than 3-4 minutes maximum, you need to work on your cardio

[Iron Dro]

great post thanx for sharing

[Lovage]

ya know im new to coming back to lifting and I dont think I have ever read anything that makes more friggen sense than this EVER and I use to be one of those guys who switch routines every few months.