Not spending enough time figuring out what training style works for me the best. For many years all I used were body part splits, and it worked, but could I have gotten more results for less time in the gym?
Not focusing enough on muscle contraction and feeling the movement in the targeted muscles.
I don’t even bother taking water anymore and I know it’s probably a mistake. I make sure I have around 700ml-1litre an hour or so before I get to the gym and seem to do alright. I should fix this, but I do have a big glass of milk not long after.
So many guys seem to over-rely on belts. I saw someone using one to deadlift 80kg in my session just now. I also have a friend who puts one on even during all his squat warmups. Seems silly to me.
I think the belt changes my breathing on squats. It makes sense for me to practise that breathing before my main work sets.
Sticking with healthy eating…i love food too much
That’s fair enough. Early on I was taught the philosophy to only gear up on the heaviest sets. I’ve never actually used a belt so I can’t really comment on what you said. All I know is i’m still progressing without one, never get any pain from squats, and never test my max so can’t see the use right now.
It honestly was. I dream very frequently and tend to remember decent chunks of my dreams. I remember dreaming and also kinda being juuuuuust enough aware that I had been dreaming for quite some time which led me to be slightly aware that I had been sleeping for a while. But my sleep/dream self thought “a long time” was me kinda approaching coma status lol
I crept out of my nap spot and hubby was like, “You’ve been asleep in that same position for over 24 hours. I had to lay a hand on your chest to check if you were still breathing.” Heh.
Yeah I too don’t really have a need to be warming up with a belt. I do use one for deadlift warm ups though, but it helps kinda staff off how quickly lower back gets fatigued. I kinda rotate sets with it on and off though.
I never used to use a belt, and did my heaviest lifts beltless. After advice on these forums, i started using a belt and found it really helpful for some lifts and mostly irritating for others. I hate belts on deadlifts, whereas i love using a belt on bsck squats. Press or front squat i can take or leave them, they probably add a couple of percent to the weight i can move, but it’s not a deal breaker either way.
I remember reading or hearing something ages ago about people injuring themselves moving stuff they can lift with ease in the gym, but their reliance on belts made their autopilot bracing out of wack due to the different styles. I don’t really know how wrong or right that is but maybe somebody with a bit of experience will be able to extrapolate. Could just be dumb information i’ve kept with me.
Whilst I have nothing against those that do use them, right now i’m avoiding them. As the weight gets higher i’m sure i’ll eventually start using them for top sets. I’m not really interested in knowing my 1 rep max for squat unless a program calls for it.
If I pick up a weight that feels too heavy for the prescribed reps, a voice in my head screams, “You got this, bro!”
Also, with just the right amount of preworkout caffeine in me, I feel invincible. The same voice chides the light weights in the log book and wants to add 10 lbs to everything.
I keep listening to this voice. I know I shouldn’t, but, damn, can that guy can be persuasive.
*Thibs mentioned somewhere that he adjusts weights set to set by feel. If a set was too easy, he may add a few pounds to the next or he strip a bit of weight if it was too hard. This, of course, would be a more sensible approach.
A couple for me:
Being tired and forgetting to change the weight on an exercise I’m supposed to ramp. I smash out those 6 reps and realise it was my 8 rep weight!
I also have a habit of forgetting what I lifted last week on certain exercises so spend ages wasted time in a session looking through my book.
Does it really take that long? I store my lifts on a basic notepad app on my phone and if I’m not 100% sure what I lifted last time it takes about 10 seconds to check. I most likely do this once I’ve just finished my warm-ups before I hit the main sets or during a rest period of the exercise I did before.
On the Meadows programmes you might be keeping the same exercise but change the reps, so the last time i lift my 3 sets of 8 on an exercise might be 4 weeks ago. So I’ve got about 16 pages on a little note pad to go through.
Fair enough. I’m actually about to do the same, been working in the 4-6 rep range for bench and plan to jump back to the 8-10 rep range. Gonna have to scroll back to what I last did 4x8 with and start at that weight but work my way to 4x10 with it.