“Think more, lift right” would be a more appropriate title on this thread.
I’ve came to realize the most important “muscle” is the brain. If you can use it wisely and apply the right strategies, the nervous system will take care of the rest - as well as feedback in return to the brain for further learning experience.
Some people are to focused on the chest to realize this.
So, you just went back to what the “science”, “evidence-based” lifters are arguing?
Yep. You hit the nail on the motherfuckin head.
I don’t like making generalizations for such a personalized sport like Powerlifting so I can only share my own, limited anecdote
I started off powerlifting in highschool with 3 other friends, we all started off at pretty similar strength levels. We didn’t squat because fuck squatting and girls don’t look at your legs- but we did bench and deadlift.
Pretty much all of us hit 135 for like 5-6 good reps on the bench, deadlift was like 225 for some reps.
5 years later the other 3 quit lifting and I’m the only one left. I progressed much faster than them. I remember they were stuck around 225 on bench and 385ish on the deadlift and by that point I was in the high 200s and mid 400s respectively
No. This is common sense to the common man, in practical terms. You have to be in the trenches for starters, in order to establish a foundation.
There’s no need to be overly scientific, even though science MAY be an additional tool in order to avoid the biggest mistakes (but be critical, and choose your sources wisely).
Why leave options on the table? Why choose in between cool whip and celery, when you can have both?
I think the funny part is that we’re all training somewhat properly according to science. Since the basics of what we understand about human physiology are aligned with “common sense” -training. And the basics are +90% of the process.
But the influencers are using it as a marketing tool, and referring to one sincular study which might indicate there migth be a 0,01% increase in bicep size if you look left when curling. So people think that science based lifting is somewhat optimized and endless tinkering. It can be, but it does not need to be.
ps. People also rarely read the studies or texts themselves. And the conclusions are usually a bit more nuanced what some Youtuber claims, nor they don’t claim simply “this is the optimal way!”. Here’s a quote from the recent Strongerbyscience -article about strict versus cheated reps for hypertrophy:
One limitation of this study that people online already brought up is that the participants were untrained, meaning they respond more easily to resistance training, which could theoretically mask potential differences between conditions. That said, even in untrained individuals, you’d still expect to see different magnitudes of growth if one method were clearly superior.
There’s still a lot of research needed before we can say anything with absolute confidence about the effects of using momentum, or “cheating,” in resistance training. However, this study suggests that incorporating some external momentum doesn’t seem to negatively impact muscle hypertrophy. That said, despite nearly double the total volume load in the cheat condition, it did not lead to greater hypertrophy, indicating that simply moving more weight through momentum does not necessarily enhance muscle gains.
Not that this has much to do with the original topic, but I agree. Emotions are usually only hurting the training.
Surely, you need to train in a way what interests/pleases you, but people often seem to do training decisions too much based on their feelings.
How often you’ll see someone saying “that felt heavy, I think it’s enough”. Like something feeling “hard/heavy” is sufficient to make any decisions. You should focus more on how much more you could have done.
Or how many times you have seen someone trying to PR even thought it’s not clearly the time or the day for that.
People should strive for objectivity in their training. It’s not easy, and that’s why there are coaches.
I doubt they work well for most non-enhanced people. The same goes for the 5-10 sec extra push/pull/attempt at an additional rep, after you’ve reached positive failure in good form. All it did was give me excess soreness and extend my recovery time, with no benefit to be seen.
With time and consistency being, likely, our two primary success factors, I think it’s fine to do something less “optimal” (which I think we really are using interchangeably with “efficient” most of the time) if it helps you keep doing it.
Reflecting back on my previous successful period(s) and now, I see one other thing in common: tracking and accountability (which may be corollary to consistency).
In between these successes, I was very consistent. 2 times per week, 8-10 exercises/workout, 1-2 sets each (sometimes more with drops or RP). But the performance at each workout was not always dictated or targeted perfomance goals.
Specially if the training style feels good mentally and physically, and you’re motivated to train in a such way.