Overanalyzing Your Program?

OVERANALYZING

I’m seeing a repetitive phenomenon with the people on this forum, both beginners and, sad to say, some veterans. I keep noticing the same things-basically on how various trainees brain’s work.

When some people come to this site, the guys who have a big work ethic and believe in a system of training whether it’s westside, or 5x5, or whatever, and hammer it and hammer it hard come here as big people already. These are the bodybuilders you see out there in the street. Big guys that you know lift, there is no doubt that they are bodybuilders.

On the other hand I have seen alot of guys on this site who have been lifting 5-10 years and you would never know they lifted even once unless they made it a point to tell you about it (and many do–LOL). And I’ll tell you what the overwhelming continual trait those guys have.

THEY OVERTHINK THIS, OVERANALYZE THAT, keep second guessing themselves, follow this routine this month and that routine the next, and Flex magazine the third month. It all depends on what they happen to read that week. HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT WORKS IF YOU SWITCH IT EVERY DAMN MONTH?

I’ve seen a couple of guys on this site in the last 2 months who have been lifting for 5-10 years and by their pics it would be embarrassing to tell anyone that they actually lift.

Both of these put up posts talking about iso-tension at the top of bicep curls, worrying up and down about the statics, should I flex the pinky finger inward to make more of a contraction on my alternate curl, should my forearm be perpendicular to the earths axis at the bottom of the shoulder press (you get the drift).

I wanted to go off on one guy and felt bad about it after but he kept saying “well how I used to do it is…” and “well Ive always done it this way” My answer would be “well why do you look like shit if your old way worked so well”?

To the beginners on this site and to the vets with their head in their ass, I want you to read this to get it clear in your heads. If you double, triple, or quadruple your training weights in good safe form over the next year/s or so, you’re basically (with diet) going to be double or triple your current muscular size.

If you’re going to sit there and overanalyze this shit like its rocket science (which it isn’t I dont care what anyone tries to make it out to be) and worry about things that really arent going to add up to pounds of muscle mass, then blame yourself when you never get there.

Are you going to be a happy man at 50 years old when you look back and think “Wow I screwed up, I never looked like a bodybuilder, never achieved my goals, never got dramatically bigger, and its gone now…I’m too old to make up for that lost time” because that’s where alot of you are heading if you dont get your heads on straight.

I blame alot of the muscle magazines for this, and a lot of it on little dudes on this site who like to give advice. A lot of the articles in the magazines are ghost written for pros or are solo articles by people who are 165lbs who never made a huge change in their physique themselves.

They try to portray lifting weights as this huge science, and they sex-up their articles with 8 vowel words and searching thru the thesaurus to find a word that makes them look extremely intelligent.

The absolute strongest you can make yourself in all exercises, coupled with food intake to eat your way up to the new musculature will allow you to hold the most muscle mass on your body that your genetics predetermine. Period.

You want to worry bout something? Worry about that damn logbook. Worry about staying uninjured in your quest. Worry about not missing any meals. Worry about somehow someway making yourself the strongest bodybuilder you can become.

I’d be a happy man if I never heard this again “Should I try to isolate the upper portion of the pec muscle and hold the peak contraction and flex hard at the top of every rep for about 5 seconds?” If you have been lifting many years with no muscle mass to show the last thing you need to worry about is peak contraction–GET THE DAMN WEIGHT UP, DO IT CONSISTENTLY, AND KEEP MOVING UP AND BEATING THE LAST WORKOUT WITH BIG WEIGHT JUMPS.

What Im hoping to relay to you slackers and dreamers that are in this forum is that you have to put your time in and pay your dues in this sport. I’ve said this before. Your 2-3 lbs gain a year arent going to get it done, so unless you want to get to 55 years old and look back and think “wow besides the people I told and myself, no one even knew I was a bodybuilder and I never made it…”

You better get your ass in gear and your head on right and get this done now. Gaining fat is easy but if you never lifted how long would it take for you to gain 80lbs of fat from 175 to 255lbs? Probably a year and you would have to forcefeed yourself to get there. Just think how long it takes to put on 80lbs of muscle mass which is an extremely “hard to come by” commodity.

This sport is about extremes–using weights you havent used previously, taking in amounts of food to build greater muscle mass-in amounts you never have done previously, and getting enough cardio done to keep you just at an acceptable offseason training bodyfat that keeps you happy. Pretty simple really.

In the end, the upper limits of your success depend only on the depth of your “primeval drive to be huge and powerful.”

Good luck.

Thanks this is a really good reminder.

Awesome ~

That’s a very good reminder, but are you going to give credit to who wrote that?

[quote]scottiscool wrote:
That’s a very good reminder, but are you going to give credit to who wrote that?[/quote]

That would be Dante, and well, me too!