'Shooting Yourself in the Foot'

I’m gonna assume that most, if not all of us had this happen to them at some point. Meaning some area of bodybuilding/nutrition where they thought they’re going with the best option, only to find out later that it was not the best option after all, and possibly sabotaging their progress.
Example: Implementing peanut butter into your diet, but not realizing that Skippy is not the best choice to go with.
Or not training core “‘cuz it ain’t that impo’tant durin’ yar bulk.”

So let us share our previous “OMG WTF DID I JUST DO?!?!?!” moments with other members so they can learn from our mistakes and progress faster.
I’m hoping that the thread will provide useful info, but funnies are always more than welcome!!

P.S: If this was made before, forgive me for being redundant.

P.P.S: Squats and milk.

I’ll play a long…

  1. Cardio
  2. HIIT type cardio

Anything repetative like this just doesnt seem to work well for me. Whether its plantar fasciitis popping up, or losing strength, or just not being effective.

Sled pulling seems to be ok, as are hill sprints, but if im gonna cut, i’ll just cut an extra 500 calories or so, or do shorter rest on the weights.

not training shoulders and thinking they’ll get hit enough by doing bench press variations and back works, also not training calfs lol

i didn’t keep a workout log when i first started. Then i started to keep one for a couple months and made the best gains of my life. then i stopped with the log and basically stalled for a year+.

thinking super pump was a great supplement to add . I always get a bit anxious before a workout and have to hit the john usually yet this Shit was like crack with the jitters and gave me explosive diarrhea.

Also going through periods counting calories when I had no fuckin’ business doing so weighing a buck 55.

Not doing HIIT for fat loss. (While weight gain isn’t the main goal- just maintenance.)

Not talking to the biggest/strongest guys in the gym.

Not trying new things because they appear different or weird.

Not talking to the biggest/strongest guys in the gym.

Not lifting heavy to get big. Thinking heavy reps in the 1-3 won’t get you bigger.

Not talking to the biggest/strongest guys in the gym.

[quote]jCaesar88 wrote:
Example: Implementing peanut butter into your diet, but not realizing that Skippy is not the best choice to go with.
Or not training core “‘cuz it ain’t that impo’tant durin’ yar bulk.”
[/quote]

…Have you tried Skippy Natty-PB? Won the Chef’s Best Natty PB Award or whatever. It’s sooooooooo good.

BTW, mine is overlooking the fact that I come from a very fat family and can’t “just eat.”

Biggest mistake perhaps was spending many years locked into doing 4 second negatives. Not what most people call “4 seconds” which is a fast count of 4 and might be 2 seconds, but pretty much 4 actual seconds.

That may not be bad as a variant but is a bad thing to be locked into. For one thing, it seriously limits the volume one can do.

A related mistake: being locked into avoiding doing positives quicker than 2 seconds.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Biggest mistake perhaps was spending many years locked into doing 4 second negatives. Not what most people call “4 seconds” which is a fast count of 4 and might be 2 seconds, but pretty much 4 actual seconds.
[/quote]

Didn’t that just get boring?

No, didn’t bore me at all. It is not as if I had to count or anything. I have a good natural sense of time, plus being consistent is not difficult.

Actually I didn’t find going to more natural tempo to add interest: just better results.

I’m not going to talk about the various mistakes I made when I was weightlifting and playing rugby (near a decade ago), cause that’s just sad to think about. However, referring to the 18 months since I’ve where I’ve been focussing on ‘bodybuilding’

  1. second guessing myself when I started training again that doing heavy eccentric/isometric calf work was the best thing for calves. Always used to do this, always believed this was best for the muscle group structure and composition down there, but then got too smart for myself and didn’t do them like this till the last 6 months…& since then my calves have been growing nicely.

  2. Not stretching regularly enough; just lazy really. Now my shoulders and hips are tight as and I’m having to play catch up - should’ve just got that sorted to start with.

  3. Not getting on the ‘chop chop’ chicken earlier. Easy lunch food, 32g protein in a serving plus good amount of calories.

  4. Spending 4 weeks doing full body training every workout in December last year. Only month where I made NO PROGRESS on weight gain or strength…just not for me and a waste of time.

I have others, but I’ll spread them out throughout the rest of this thread.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
No, didn’t bore me at all. It is not as if I had to count or anything. I have a good natural sense of time, plus being consistent is not difficult.

Actually I didn’t find going to more natural tempo to add interest: just better results.[/quote]

True, I’d do freaking 3-minute long static holds on a BOSU ball with my eyes closed with some crossfit looney smashing my stomach with a baseball bat if it was going to get results…

[quote]SSC wrote:
jCaesar88 wrote:
Example: Implementing peanut butter into your diet, but not realizing that Skippy is not the best choice to go with.
Or not training core “‘cuz it ain’t that impo’tant durin’ yar bulk.”

…Have you tried Skippy Natty-PB? Won the Chef’s Best Natty PB Award or whatever. It’s sooooooooo good.

BTW, mine is overlooking the fact that I come from a very fat family and can’t “just eat.”[/quote]

It still has added sugar though!! =p

Spent my first couple of years getting my info from bodybuilding.com , before I found this site and elitefts

TBT and functional training (it’s not all crap, only if that’s all you do)

My regrets, lets see.

-Spending my 1st two years of lifting doing a full body routine. Don’t get me wrong, I made progress in strength and size plus I enjoyed it. I then switched over to a body part split and had better gains than I’ve ever experienced. Makes me wonder what I could have achieved had I done a split from the beginning.

-Not realizing soon enough that walking and/or low intensity cardio keeps me lean, doesn’t impair my weightlifting and I enjoy it… ALOT. I just put on my headphones and zone out. I really enjoy having some time to myself to just walk somewhere and listen to music.

-This isn’t a regret but more of a doubt they may become a regret. I never train my abs or core, because well I like my abs/core and never thought I needed to improve it. However, again I wonder what if. I plan on incorporating some solid ab routine into my split. In time I’ll know if I had been in the dark on something I should’ve been doing.

[quote]dankid wrote:
Spent my first couple of years getting my info from bodybuilding.com , before I found this site and elitefts[/quote]

That sucks man, I’m so sorry.

spent way to long focusing on eatting certain kinds of food and counting my calories when i was light enough all i needed to do was just eat alot… dont over think things i guess, this was also before i discovered T-Nation and was using teenbodybuilding.com/bodybuilding.com

-Cutting for too long, ended up as a skinny guy with no fat but very little muscle…
-not listening to the big guys just for those idiotic total body articles
-not keeping a log

  • overtraining everyday, training 7 days a week
  • not doing cardio year round
  • Loving mutant mass and Mamoth5000
  • Not keeping a log
  • Not taking in enough EFA’s