Just Lift Big and Eat Big?

Training Bodybuilding
1

I do not write on forums. I have poor writing skills due to dyslexia and it often takes too much time to write something coherent and to the point, however I have to comment on the people who have negatively responded to Get Lifted and his Scrawny to Brawny thread. In particular that dumb ass remark; just lift big and eat big.

I was fortunate to see one of the best weightlifting coaches of Europe at work. This gentleman produced a national and international champ at least every other year for 20 years. Also, in the same gym a national level power lifting coach trained his customers and the mere thought of just lift big and eat big would get you a swift kick under the ass and a one way ticket out of his gym. Both these gentlemen would spend their entire Sunday writing detailed training programs for their students based on the copious notes they made during the week.

I have seen many of the top weightlifting coaches in Europe train their students and some of them would train you with a broom stick only for months. Just lift big and eat big? Please.

I worked with one of the best field and track coaches in the Netherlands and he had his athletes learn how to walk perfectly and then run perfectly before they were even allowed to sprint. I trained with one of the best swim coaches of Germany and same thing?learn perfect technique first before improving on time. And I can come up with a dozen or more examples both here and in Europe. I have trained and worked with bicycling coaches, boxing managers, speed skating coaches and many team sport coaches.

None of them, not one of them ever said something as stupid as; just jump in the water and go as fast as you can or here just hop on this bike and let?s see what you got. Or there are some speed skates, go for it. Or there?s the sandbox, just jump as far as you can as many times as you can. Or here?s your opponent, put on these gloves and go beat the crap out of him and oh try not to get the crap beaten out of you.

Every coach worth his salt would teach technique and perfect execution first, every single one. Every single one of these coaches would comment positively on what Get Lifted did or is trying to do. They themselves spend hours, days and weeks on teaching their students exercise technique etc.

Just lift big and eat big is dumb ass advice and contrary to what some idiots on this forum claim that does NOT work for most people on the planet. This works for a select few, maybe. I do not know what gym these guys are working out at but the dozens of gyms I have frequented produced very few big men, or women. And many of these men and women do just that; lift big and eat everything that is not nailed to the floor.

I do not want to make this too long but what stuns me is that you have a tremendous amount of talented coaches who give for free the kind of information we in Europe have to pay hundreds of euros for and every one of the programs they produce for you is incredibly detailed and exceptionally well thought out for whatever you want to achieve.

And after all this you still claim just lift big and eat big?
What the f@#&?

PS. Would you really say that to JB in his face too? Next time he is available for questions would you ask him: John, why not tell them just lift big and eat big?

His book could have been a lot shorter too and cheaper if all he had to say was; Chapter One: just lift big and eat big.
Please.

2

I think (and I could be wrong because I’ve only been reading here a few weeks) that on this board there is an unspoken qualification to that line. Eat big and lift big seems to be understood on this board to mean “Eat big and clean, and lift big and smart.”

That’s oversimplified, yes, but if you’ve read anything at all on this site, you’ll know that people don’t mean “Eat as much as you can of everything in sight, and lift as much weight as you can, regardless of form.”

Of course you don’t see many gyms putting out huge ripped studs. You also won’t catch many gym members doing their homework and reading such quality information as you’ll find on this site. The majority of people think they can stick to their 3 squares a day and do DB curls and bench press and they’ll get huge. “3 sets, 10 reps,” they’ll say. And why? Because you happen to have 10 fingers and 3 times is a charm? But for some reason, people will stick to that plan year after fruitless year without wondering why it isn’t working.

Don’t take me wrong though, I think Get Lifted is doing a great thing. But I don’t think that level of attention to detail is absolutely necessary. Sure, the best trainers in the world do it, but that’s because they’re expected to produce the best athletes in the world. Most of us will not become the best athletes in the world. Minutia like this is only crucial when minute differences make or break you (ONLY in the elite levels of competition).

But, it’s a personal matter. If Get Lifted feels he needs this level of attention to detail, and he feels it’s worth it, then I applaud him for doing it and I wish him all the best. But you won’t catch ME setting up a tripod so I can analyze each little detail of my lifts. I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to agonize over the minutia in order to make satisfactory progress.

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I think OneEye covered that very well, but missed one thing. In your post you talk about sports and mastering the sport before trying to accel. THATS NOT T-NATION

T-Nation is about bodybuilding and growing (mostly), and if you want to grow, you need to eat a lot of food and lift heavy weights, therefore you need to EAT BIG AND LIFT BIG.

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[quote]freejury wrote:

T-Nation is about bodybuilding and growing (mostly), and if you want to grow, you need to eat a lot of food and lift heavy weights, therefore you need to EAT BIG AND LIFT BIG.[/quote]

This sums up the T-Nation attitude well, it’s about growing size-wise as well as strength-wise.

Doval, I agree with main points of your post but as the others have said we are not talking about complete mastery of a sport here, although the powerlifting guys do talk about focusing on perfect technique and implement drills into their programs to assist with this.

The “Eat Big and Lift Big” statement is usually meant to stop someone falling into the common trap of “paralysis by analysis”. Too many guys get so worried about the details and whether or not they are doing things correctly that they forget the two basic principles of packing on muscle - “EAT BIG AND LIFT BIG!” Yes, we have to do things smartly to avoid injury, overtraining etc, but if you don’t do these two fundamentals you won’t get anywhere with your training.

Think of it as a Pareto analysis, 80% of your results come from 20% of the actions/influences, so if there were ten things you could focus on in your weight training, lifting and eating big (2/10 = 20%) will contribute 80% of your results. In other words you get a long way (especially if new to lifting) by just concentrating on these two things. When you get more advanced concentrate more on the other things.

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Or much simpler…there are some dumb motherfuckas out there who got real muscular and cut. Gaining a Phd in bodybuilding may sound great, but hard work can trump an IQ in terms of real world results.

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I’ve got one thing to say: WHO CARES?!??! This guy already knows what to do, we are just reiterating it for him. He’s overcomplicating things, so we’re just giving him constant reminders to just eat big and lift alot. Some of you guys take shit way to seriously. All he needs to do is up his Protien and Calorie, find a good program, and he’d be fine. He hasn’t tried hard enough to get the results in the past, so now he thinks this miracle program is going to make him huge. Eventually he will relize what is neccecary and what isn’t.

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I think the point is this - Too many lifters who post often are like 6ft and weigh 165-175 lbs. They want someone to give them this mystical “key” that will allow themselves to gain monster amounts of muscle while still being able to see their abs. It will not happen. Often time these newbies also post programs with very little compound movements (Dips, Squats, Deadlifts, etc).

In short the EAT BIG, LIFT BIG mantra is something we try to explain to folks who just don’t get it. If you want to get big and muscular, accept the fact you are gonna gain some fat. You want to be strong, accept the fact your gonna have to do squats, and alot of em. We tell them to eat alot and lift heavy because if they don’t, the ain’t gonna ever make it to the T-Nation level.