to our advanced and intermediate lifters here in T-Nation, what were your biggest mistakes when you were beginners? plain and simple. i’m a beginners and if you don’t mind share to us beginners so we don’t do the same thing. thank you
im not advanced or intermediate but something that really fucked with me for a long time was i spent way more time reading the articles on this site and not enough time reading the forum posts. coaches gotta sell shit where as the people in the forums are giving out honest real world methods without looking for anything in return.
ive tried a bunch of coaches programs but nothing has worked as well as the information ive found in prof Xs thread and C_c’s thread.
Lol well this is going to come up a lot-
Not eating enough. Being a fat-aphobe for the first several years of my training held me back. Id be a lot bigger if i had eaten more in the initial years of my training.
I know this will be a popular answer, but definitely not understanding how truly important dietary factors are in continued success. I can accurately pinpoint several points in my years of training where I made noticeable jumps in progress, not due to how I was training, but moreso how I was dealing with recovery (dietary) issues.
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Not training legs hard enough
Not focusing on hamstrings enough
Not eating enough (duh)
Being afraid to eat high-protein “cheat” meals
Deadlifting in the 10-15 rep range consistently
Majoring in the minors (obsessing over whether you should eat 35 or 50 grams of carbs post-workout, when you don’t even eat 1x protein per lb of bodyweight, is just silly)
Not eating a ton around my workouts.
Focusing on form too much.
Worrying too much about food types.
Not lifting enough. Meaning, not hitting bodyparts as often as I should.
Eating too much shit.
Dirty bulking.
Only training chest and bis for my first year training, and learning about legs after 2 years training…I’ve only been consistently training legs and back for the past year and a half, I regret that shit, but it has also really lit the motivational fire inside to get my lagging bodyparts up to par with the rest of my body.
i know about those diet stuff, i hear you austin_bicep, i dirty bulked when i first got into training seriously. I’ve done Starting Strength and everyone on another forum told me to eat whatever, well i’ve got stretch marks on my inner thighs but also on other places i don’t like, waist, ass.
and yeah actionboy, might giving me their links? thanks
and other sirs, thanks… i hope more people will reply to this thread
you need to find what works for you…
You can’t be scared to take risks and listen to your instincts…If you look at the most sucessful posters on here, they all train differently because it works for them…
there might be some commonalities like eating above maintenance intake, high protein, training for progression, etc…and if you are going to focus on something in their training, then focus on that…
even if i’m just a beginner? with 3-4 months of training? i’m currently following layne’s power/hypertrophy program. i like it a lot
Thinking I’m indestructible, and then, when my body tells me I’m not, thinking I’m a badass trying to push through the bad pain.
[quote]cook wrote:
even if i’m just a beginner? with 3-4 months of training? i’m currently following layne’s power/hypertrophy program. i like it a lot[/quote]
if you like it and are making gains then keep doing it…simple as that…
but as you gain experience, you may feel that there is something that doesn’t work for you in the program, and you may have to change that to better suit you as an individual…
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Thinking I’m indestructible, and then, when my body tells me I’m not, thinking I’m a badass trying to push through the bad pain.
[/quote]
PFFT, i AM indestructible, which is why i listen to the song, it applies to me. You just arent badass CB =(
Training blindly with no rhyme or reason. Just knew I wanted to look like the guy on the BB magazine But didn’t know how to get there.
Not doing enough research as to what I want to accomplish and how to train.
Asking Questions of the more experienced! I knew everything; Right? LOL
Thinking Bench Press is the ultimate exercise along with Curls
Not doing Squats!!!
[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Thinking I’m indestructible, and then, when my body tells me I’m not, thinking I’m a badass trying to push through the bad pain.
[/quote]
PFFT, i AM indestructible, which is why i listen to the song, it applies to me. You just arent badass CB =([/quote]
lol
There is shit I’ll train through. But sometimes, it’s better to leave a particular muscle or joint or whatever alone for awhile.
The most retarded thing I did was watching some old westside vids with the guys doing max effort bench.So retardo here goes to the gym the next day and adopts a super wide grip{think snatch grip},no tightness,no retracted scapula and goes for a 1rm.That took me out of pressing for a good month.I also did no rotator cuff work or anything to target anything other than my front delts.When I think back I wondered why my shoulders were rounded forward and not full like in bodybuilding mags.Atleast I know now I was a douche…
Not squatting often enough. Also, going from 4 meals a day to 6-7 made quite a difference. Can’t stress enough how important 6-7 meals and a gallon of water are to your training goals.
Not doing squats consistently!! I’ve noticed that when my squats are up, so is all the other lifts
[quote]D Public wrote:
[quote]cook wrote:
even if i’m just a beginner? with 3-4 months of training? i’m currently following layne’s power/hypertrophy program. i like it a lot[/quote]
if you like it and are making gains then keep doing it…simple as that…
but as you gain experience, you may feel that there is something that doesn’t work for you in the program, and you may have to change that to better suit you as an individual…
[/quote]
okay bro, thanks. do you think layne’s program is too much volume? for you.
i never tried it. There are quite a few people who have had success using it, so it’s probably quite good…I remember seeing a guy with a training log in the training log forum who was using it with good results…
another mistake i should mention to you is…Don’t doubt yourself or your routine once you have found what works for you…if you switch routines too often as a beginner that can really mess you up…it’s best to stick with something for a long time…
Now if your not making gains then there is something wrong, and you need to figure out what it is…and thats where finding what works for you comes into play…