Found this in a recent article on this site… Pretty Damn Good advice for any ADVANCED guys whom has been stuck in their progress for awhile. NOT for Beginners … and probably not for intermediate level guys either IMO.
Be Willing to Adapt and Change Your Approach
What worked once may not work again. It’s always tough to watch some middle-aged man try to do what he did when he was 16. While the thought process might be admirable, the reality is that we’re not the same people we were before and, likewise, neither is your body.
The easiest way to illustrate this is by bringing up something we’ve all seen a hundred times. A lifter goes from 180 pounds to 215 pounds using a certain diet and training plan. He remains stuck at 215 pounds and can’t figure out why he can’t get to 230. The thing is, he’s simply a different man at 215 with a different body and what worked before won’t work again.
As you change, so must your training, diet, and mind. You can’t get anywhere if you don’t evolve.
LOL not your fault … Wendler is obviously right as a guy with decades of training success under his belt. It will just get misconstrued like every other piece of good information.
Added in a little more detail…yeah someone will read this and think my bench has been stuck at 150 lbs for a week program isnt working must revamp EVERYTHING!
Now what if it’s stuck for over 6 months at 150 lbs with no obvious flaw in diet or training ? I made three changes of program during these 6 months and don’t know what to do
Is this a rhetorical question to challenge a statement made or a actual question? would you either prefer a Light heart P.C. or a no nonsense tough love reply . I am flexible I am am old cranky and grizzled and I can go either way depending on my mood.
This is an actual question. The less nonsense the better I guess…
@others I’m gaining only fat when I eat decently, my body just doesn’t want to grow. I think literally 100% of the little strength gains made over two years came from neural adaptation. I don’t know what my body had been doing with the 200g of proteins provided daily with a great kcal amount too (now just cut back to decent, because muscles won’t grow with it anyway). People who start at 135 lbs and then are 200 lbs put on muscle. When a 135 lbs guy only puts on fat, he’s never gonna get to 200 lbs because no one wants to add 70 lbs of pure fat. That’s why I’m only 160 lbs (with somewhere between 20% and 25% bf). I started at 20% I think, put on 5% bf, to be rewarded with pathetic lifts. People with average genetics at least put on muscle on the same time, meaning that even if body fat increases its absolute value, the bf% doesn’t increase that much (because they added muscle weight, which isn’t happening to me). I think upping my protein intake to 300g would probably send me to the hospital.
“If you’re afraid to eat, then please, don’t do this program. This isn’t for you, nor is it for someone that’s scared one night of eating big will make his skirt fit a bit tighter.” - Jim Wendler
If you want to get bigger and stronger you’ve got to eat big. For shits sake you’re 160 pounds. If you’re afraid of adding a little body fat you will never get anywhere. Dieting off a few pounds of fat later is A LOT EASIER than gaining some muscle. So sack up and eat some carbs with that protein or stop complaining.
Obviously something is flawed…can we put ego to the side at this point?
Lets do the math if the actual lifting isn’t flawed and the diet aspect isn’t flawed …using your own words.Which obviously is a contradiction.
Then the only answer to the equation is you…
Im going to say something that most arent going too like…mostly by guys who arent getting results like yourself.
For the longest time Lurking on this site Ive seen people coming on this site claiming …My programs is good my eating is good. They are following this program or this diet Blah …Blah …Blah. people give them advice how to improve their program or diet over and over again. Yet they make zero progress at all, no matter what.
My question is " Seriously, How much HARD WORK in the actual gym are you putting in? Are you actually putting effort into it or are you just going through the motions?
At times I honestly feel some peoples problem has nothing to do with their over all programming anymore as much as it has to do with not putting out the necessary physical exertion at times to see results.
My bottom line advice… Do the work like you mean it.
Crap sometimes I think some people keep trying too over complicate things to avoid having to do Hard physical labor in the actual gym.
I believe the avoidance of the hard work (lifting with progression) AND the boring work (recovery stuff, mobility, eating) are the main reasons for many plateaus. That’s also one of the reasons people are always seeking the perfect method/program.
Effort and plan are everything. Usually people are lacking the prior to some extent.
Exactly you get where I am coming from ! In my case I am just just making reference regarding the gym aspect, but your points are absolutely valid also .
I still stress allot of guys do not push hard enough in the confines of the gym. Either no one has taught them how or they lack the mental fortitude to do so.
Maybe I don’t know what hard work really is, the same way cavemen didn’t know what a computer is, because they had never seen it (I am in a commercial gym, so there are not many very strong people there…). I am going through the motions in that I am using the same weight over and over, but when I try to add even 5 lbs, it doesn’t last long, because after a while I can feel my tendons straining. When benching, for example, I can feel my weakest side sorer than my stronger left side, which is frustrating because after a while my benching form becomes a little askew, and if I insist, the plates drop at one side (my weakest side). I could add clips, but this would be hiding the symptoms and not really help. Actually, this happened even with my regular training weight. I fixed it by benching twice a week instead of thrice, and more recently by lifting a bit less heavy with more reps once out of two or three. Also, I have tried to do some lighter DB bench to distribute weight equally and reduce strength inequality, which worked to some extent (there is still a very slight imbalance which shows up at the very last reps of the last set) But anyway, adding those 5 lbs will probably mean less reps or a failed set. Adding a rep means failing prematurely. So what’s hard work ? Are you failing a set every week ? Like, the bar is literally over your chest and you have to roll it ? (It happened to me before several times, and I have never seen it happen to anyone else.) Is 5 5 5 at weight x “easier work” than, say, 5 4 3 at weight x+5lbs ? I have no idea how people measure what is hard work and what isn’t. What are examples of hard work and easy work ? Failing every week seems to be obviously harder work, but it doesn’t seem very efficient at promoting growth either…
I personally need to mix hard with smart. If I push my self all the time, I end up breaking down and even regressing. I’m not talking about the deload here, I do that, what I mean is control of the fatique. I run and lift with goals on mind so I need to find the area between “enough” and “too much”. Most of the programs/methods do this (5/3/1 with its variations works good enough for me) Also, the boring work is equally important, since it basically determines how hard you can work.