I don’t have nearly your experience, but I’ve also found that as I’ve been in the gym longer, volume has become more necessary. Lately I’ve been keeping the same training and manipulating my diet every week or two, and that’s been having a much larger impact on my results.
@BrickHead my responses keep getting Zuckerberg’d. Let’s just agree to disagree.
Fine! Just realize this is an open forum and even when I reply to you I’m inclined to speak generally and cognizant that there’s an audience! You’re treating this forum as if we’re in a goddamn formal debate at an Ivy League university setting in which people have to watch their p’s and q’s in every statement while discussing gym activities of all things!
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Bro, get over yourself.
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That deserves a slow clap and a scotch.
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Love this quote. Things have changed though. Being able to google and incorrectly interpret or cherry pick from studies posted online had taken the armchair expert phenomenon to a new level. These days you don’t need a real educational background or any impressive relevant accomplishments to go online and prop oneself up as an expert. As Brad mentioned, we all know Jason Blaha as such an example who eventually had all his “expertise” disproven, his unprovable bullshit claims dismissed by those much more knowledgable and accomplished and will probably be remembered as nothing more than a recurring online meme topic.
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Yup. Pair this with how exercise science is such a clusterf**k, with limited funding (since it’s pretty unimportant compared to things like cancer research and other medical science advances) and poorly controlled studies that using studies to draw conclusions tends to cause more harm than good.
Like, just from posting on forums, you can find a poster that reports that they are eating all the right foods and performing the exact most perfect routine and not making any progress, and then when you finally see a video of them lifting or spending a session with them you realize that they have no idea how to actually push themselves, and what they’ve been considering as 80% of their 1rm is really more like 60%, and that their “1-2 reps shy of failure” was really more like 4-6. What are the chances those in the study might’ve experiencing the same issues? Or what if those performing the study weren’t able to make the determination?
Or how about considering the recovery aspects of the subjects in the study? How do we know what their diets and sleep patterns were like? Considering most subjects for studies are college kids (because they’re free), I’m willing to bet there was minimal control.
When I was young and inexperienced, I tried to compensate for that with a lot of book smarts. Following all the “right” things led me to stagnation pretty quick.
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As an ex collegiate athlete, I thought I knew how to push myself physically. When it came to deadlifts my 1RM was always light years ahead of my 3RM, I couldn’t figure out why, until I watched a video you posted of deadlifting some obscene amount for 8 reps. I would of stopped after your second rep, and was shocked when you kept going. Made me re-think how much effort should go into higher Rep sets.
All that to say, yep, I can’t agree more.
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I don’t see how this random assortment of quotes implies I need to get over myself.
None of us would be surprised by your response.
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Bullseye! Everyone has been there, as it’s been said earlier with the plethora of articles available on these topics, anyone can deem themselves an expert, or at least feel like they’re extremely knowledgable. But as you pointed out, almost every study has far too many variables to hold water. The difference is some folks will realize that these articles and studies can be thought of as ideas to consider and implement in training as they see fit, and see what happens, and others will take it as ghospel, and having never trained like a bodybuilder themselves, will tell a two-time pro card winning bodybuilder, prep coach and bodybuilding judge [quote=“RyuuKyuzo, post:64, topic:222249, full:true”]
That’s a cool story, bro
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Ignorance is bliss I guess!
Bingo! The exercise performance aspect is so important. As @T3hPwnisher pointed out, how many folks think they’re “maxing out” or in “beast mode” or whatever, when they’re actually not even close and are not executing the movement properly. But again this takes time and reflection to realize, and if people aren’t seeing the results they want, they’ll sooner blame the program, rather than reflect on their performance of it or their lacking nutrition.
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You can’t teach intensity or discipline.
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I always thought I tried hard, and come to think of it, I actually did try hard for a gymrat, certainly harder than nearly all gym goers. However, when I started my first contest prep, I realized there is a whole other level of effort, far beyond the effort of some guy who takes the gym a bit more seriously than the average gym guy. During my prep, I increasingly demanded more and more of myself. And I’m not talking of doing dumb shit like death/failure sets in which one is convulsing and turning purple or all kinds of stuff that I believe to be unnecessary, such as forced reps, drop sets, or reps done with god awful form just to boost one’s ego or in an attempt for one to make oneself feel like he’s giving it his all.
It actually came to the point in which if I had some shaky or incomplete reps during a set, I’d be a bit pissed off. Like I actually starting thinking, “I can’t get this fucking set or rep back!” I know that’s a bit ridiculous, but it’s how I felt. Even with intervals, I increasingly tried harder and harder, but not so hard during the fast portion of an interval that I couldn’t complete the whole HIIT workout. I just worked on developing a good pace for both the fast and slow portions of HIIT.
And I REALLY started to focus on the mind-muscle connection and started to take on the form of those who, according to “fitness experts”, have “bad form”. Plus I started to use straps more liberally on back exercises. I started to follow all the “bad advice” and form of pro bodybuilders to improve myself, even though, “pros are just drugs” and straps make one “dysfunctional”. Funny how it worked out to my benefit! 
Even with LISS cardio before breakfast I’d purposely choose routes there were on an incline for a good portion of the walk and REALLY walk. I did not want to do anything without effort!
And believe me, looking back, I don’t know how the hell I did some of this with a full-time job, a wife, friends, errands, two mini-vacations, and for the last two months, having abysmal (and I mean, abysmal!) sleep. I sometimes got three to four hours of sleep per night, did LISS, went to work, went to the gym, did errands, and so on.
I gotta say though, during the last weeks of the prep, even LISS was becoming something similar to a torture walk. I’d get up and start walking around half asleep, like a zombie. Sometimes during the start of this Fall, it would be drizzling, chilly, my back would be hurting, and I felt utterly miserable! But I pushed on.
As I said elsewhere, I developed sciatic pain in the past three weeks from a tight piriformis and medial glute. I am now going to PT for it and even had some relief from my first session yesterday. I don’t know if this was stupid, but I squatted and dumbbell stiff legged deadlifted with such pain. I am not some type of badass, but there were times in the prep in which I lost my mind and just pressed on. I guess it was irresponsible at times but I was in too deep. Sometimes I sort of forgot I had a job even. : )
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Your bias is showing. You realize you can do the same thing with anyone else, right?
Ignorance is bliss I guess!
You would know.
Do what?
Clearly, I haven’t done anything.
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You don’t get it. Here, I’ll show you by using Brick’s latest post.
Oh wow, these random sentence fragments sure do prove… something! And this is only from half the post! He must be really full of himself!
Either that, or quotes like this don’t actually mean anything. I guess I’ll let that be your call.
Maybe, but consider: Brick is an RD with multiple degrees related to sports nutrition and physiology as well as having a damn excellent physique and a background of being friendly, helpful and all around like able with no hint of arrogance or an ego despite an extensive formal education and impressive real world experience to speak as an expert on most topics on here.
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Exactly, which is why quoting random sentence fragments doesn’t mean anything.
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