[quote]Professor X wrote:
so what routine should be given?[/quote]
Soy milk and Leg Press
[quote]haas wrote:
Beginners? In the bodybuilding forum there are no beginners everyone in there asking questions have been training for at least 8 months. And if I were to guess most of them are between the age of 16 and 21. When I think back to when I was that age i can remember how I knew everything and any advice given to me pretty much fell on deaf ears regardless of the advice given. The people that are dedicated will find the necessary information the ones that aren’t will most likely keep asking the same questions and getting the answers they don’t want to hear.[/quote]
Anyone that has only trained for 8 months is still a beginner, still learning the actual exercises, the movement, the feel, and how their body responds…
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
so what routine should be given?[/quote]
Soy milk and Leg Press[/quote]
I don’t know why people knock leg press so much, if you spill your fucking guts on the machine you’ll add muscle. If it is just an easy way out of squatting forget it.
As a newbie, and I still am one, I figured out to read the threads in bodybuilding and beginners that say start here and are stickied, best of T-Nation, must read for beginners, beginners 2 . I maybe older than the 18-21 crowd, but I am still not a rocket scientist. If you want to learn you gotta put in the effort. It would be nice to know when a PM is appropriate versus posting on the web … Prof X has started posting some and that helps, but that is his opinion ( and I value his opinions) of what is best served by a group discussion.
[quote]
Just my opinion but if someone is serious about lifting the will go to the gym find the biggest fucker there and talk his ear off.
[quote]
This is really good way to get screwed up … I’ve got the injuries to prove. You’re a newbie and you believe the big guy, maybe that person knows something and is willing to share and maybe not; sometimes they get their jollies watching newbies fail. Besides, as has been pointed out in a number of threads … just cuz your big does not equate to knowing what you’re doing. It may be good genetics, or lucked into the right program, etc.
How ever as newbie, there are questions that it would nice to ask w/o being flamed and the search engine only works once you figure out the right combo of words to use … just try looking for beginner programs and seeing if they are the right fit for you. Once you luck on Shugart’s big fat training article you can start actually looking. So yes, the search engine could be better.
Goals … you gotta be kidding! Once you get done flaming “the I wanna get ripped and huge crowd” out of the way, try finding any real help. There is the occasional poster who offers insight on how to determine what is a real goal and what is bs, for those people I am thankful.
The thought of changing the front page to cater to begginers seems ridiculous to me…
Upon joining the forums, i found the Begginner must read thread in all of five minutes…which linked up to several amazing articles for begginers, explaining such simple concepts as “the one goal”, or even what a set/rep is.
This site already has all kinds of extremely useful information for begginers- and if they can put int he effort in the gym and in the kitchen, then they can damn well put in the effort on the computer, take five minutes, and find an appropriate article.
[quote]NIguy wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
so what routine should be given?[/quote]
Soy milk and Leg Press[/quote]
I don’t know why people knock leg press so much, if you spill your fucking guts on the machine you’ll add muscle. If it is just an easy way out of squatting forget it.[/quote]
Not knocking it at all man, it is a joke.
Apparently a shitty one, but a joke none the less.
First off, I want to say Thank you T-Nation! As a newb, I found this site really confusing, and there is still alot of stuff I would like to know. Still a newb! However, I always just thought it was set up this way to keep the not serious want those huge muscles, here is my credit card, fed ex them overnite! people from sticking around and bothering everyone else! Ya gotta earn it! From the very first time I checked out this site that has been the message.
The search function works for me…
T-Nation is great for someone like me, who thrives on assimilating huge amounts of data and synthesizing it into a big picture model. For the person who thrives on more concrete “do this” type manuals, I can see the confusion factor. There is also some merit to the notion that T-Nation might not be the optimal choice for the total newbie.
Maybe there should be a big link on the front page saying “Lost? New to training & nutrition? Read this!” which could go into the basic concepts that we all take for granted. You could even have an online quiz about training concepts which n00bs could take until they really grok the shit.
Look at stronglifts.com: there is clearly a market for telling people to drink milk, avoid junk food and do basic lifts. This is not a slam on Mehdi’s site, I love it!
The definition T-Nation beginner is different to the “normal” definition of a beginner.
We accept that the training mindset and work ethic of this site is entirely different, yet, we try to apply such concepts to the normal person - you simply can’t.
A “normal” beginner usually has just started lifting weights, a T-Nation beginner is someone who is STILL able to progress at a rapid rate because he’s no where near his genetic ceiling. Yes, that does mean someone who has been training for 10 years can be a beginner, since if he’s training like shit then the potential rapid progress he could be making is not happening because of his own incompetence.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]milktruck wrote:
I think the OP has a good point. Having a Link that said “Need a routine? Click Here!” probably couldnt hurt to get people started (without hurting their personal fable by calling them beginners). You could even switch the program every 2 months or so and the kiddies could all share experiences as they do the same workouts like crossfit! Everyone has to start somewhere, and directing them to ABBH 1 is way better than leaving them to the squat rack to curl on their own.
[/quote]
LOL. Most of these people act like they can only train 2 or 3 days week. You don’t hand out blind routines to follow without knowing the GOALS of the individual and their work ethic.
Since when has this site attracted hardcore gym rats in the last 5 years or so?
Most of these guys apparently just want abs on their 150lbs frames…so what routine should be given?[/quote]
who cares what they want? newbies will progress toward all goals for a little while if they have a program that has squats, deads, bench, rows, mil press, and chins to start with. this will put them years ahead of the frat curl crowd and they can become more sophisticated lifters eventually and pick personal goals from a better base of habits.
can you really argue with a link to berardis 7 rules and waterburys anti bodybuilding hypertrophy program? that’s where I started after a ton of fucking with the search function and scouring the archives.
think of the alternative. it would help stop broscience. it would keep curlers out of the squat rack. it would lessen newbs asking how to combine hss100 and meltdown training.
I don’t know, a button somewhere up top for those who are overwhelmed just makes sense to me.
I don’t think they need a set program or anything, just need to read through articles on nutrition and training, and see what works for them, there’s already threads directing beginners to relevant articles, if they’re serious about it they’ll search until they find what they need to get started, the search function is best used for finding questions that have already been asked IMO.
Very soon I’m going to be posting an 80+ lb 3.5 year bulk where I went from 130lbs skinnyfat in 2006, to 210 with a 300/500/500 bench squat dead. I just need about 5-10 more lbs on my bench.
[quote]milktruck wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]milktruck wrote:
I think the OP has a good point. Having a Link that said “Need a routine? Click Here!” probably couldnt hurt to get people started (without hurting their personal fable by calling them beginners). You could even switch the program every 2 months or so and the kiddies could all share experiences as they do the same workouts like crossfit! Everyone has to start somewhere, and directing them to ABBH 1 is way better than leaving them to the squat rack to curl on their own.
[/quote]
LOL. Most of these people act like they can only train 2 or 3 days week. You don’t hand out blind routines to follow without knowing the GOALS of the individual and their work ethic.
Since when has this site attracted hardcore gym rats in the last 5 years or so?
Most of these guys apparently just want abs on their 150lbs frames…so what routine should be given?[/quote]
who cares what they want? newbies will progress toward all goals for a little while if they have a program that has squats, deads, bench, rows, mil press, and chins to start with. this will put them years ahead of the frat curl crowd and they can become more sophisticated lifters eventually and pick personal goals from a better base of habits.
can you really argue with a link to berardis 7 rules and waterburys anti bodybuilding hypertrophy program? that’s where I started after a ton of fucking with the search function and scouring the archives.
think of the alternative. it would help stop broscience. it would keep curlers out of the squat rack. it would lessen newbs asking how to combine hss100 and meltdown training.
I don’t know, a button somewhere up top for those who are overwhelmed just makes sense to me.[/quote]
What the fuck is “bro-science”? Is that when personal training authors use terms like “sarcoplasmic hypertrophy” in a sentence as if you gain different muscle when bodybuilding? Is that when scientific studies are mis-represented in order to support the OPINION of an author?
Look, the biggest mistake ANYONE can make, not just beginners, is blindly getting all of your information from only ONE source. Most of these people do not have formal educations in biology or physiology. They get all that they think they know from what someone else tells them.
So tell me, when you speak of “bro-science”…are you attempting to act as if the word of the guys who actually lived it and achieved levels of development well above average is now to be discredited as useless?
The person who actually has a chance in hell of truly standing out in a crowd because of how much muscle they built will be far better served by getting in a gym and paying attention to, and asking questions of, the guys who actually got big than they would worrying about most of the info guys like you get bogged down with.
That also doesn’t mean you stop learning…but there is a huge fucking difference between an intelligent pursuit of knowledge from many well rounded sources…and idiotically following every written word of a guru because you figured that this was way easier than going to school or learning through experience.
LOL. Most of these people act like they can only train 2 or 3 days week. You don’t hand out blind routines to follow without knowing the GOALS of the individual and their work ethic.
Since when has this site attracted hardcore gym rats in the last 5 years or so?
Most of these guys apparently just want abs on their 150lbs frames…so what routine should be given?[/quote]
I own a gym, but workout at a different gym than my own; reason being I don’t want to be followed around and harassed by staff and clients when it’s my time to lift. Anyway the gym I lift at is frequented by a ton of kids from a local university.
There was this one group of about five guys that used to ask me a shitload of questions everytime I worked out, how did you get your chest that big, my answer a ton of push ups, they hated that. Next question, how did you get your back like that, my answer a ton of pull ups, they hated that, so on and so on.
Like most people on this site I started training very young, around 13. I would do push ups in my room til I couldn’t do anymore. I would hang from the banister of our stairs (not the safest, I know) and do pull ups til I couldn’t do anymore and imagine what pull ups with just your fingertips clinging to a bannister does for your grip and forearms.
I was very coachable and luckily started working with a local college strength coach at a very young age who took me under his wing (for free, my parents could never had paid him) and I LISTENED to him and got big and strong.
My point is that these beginners, like X stated do not believe they’re beginners, so good sound advice fall on deaf ears. Back to those college guys who never liked my answers, I would watch them train chest (which none of them actually had) and they would do 3 versions of flat bench, 3 of incline, 3 of decline, then all this cable stuff, and I again stress that they had no chests to speak of in the first place. On a benevolent day while I was sitting in my office I decided to throw these guys a bone and write them up a good solid beginners program that would start laying the groundwork for a good frame on them.
I gave them this printed out workout and they thanked and thanked me and said they couldn’t wait to get started. A few weeks later I see them doing their same old, idiotic routine. I asked them how that workout was going and the one kid had the nerve to tell me it just wasn’t hard enough or had enough movements in it. Long story short it’s a few years later and I still see these guys around and they’re the same size.
I on the other hand who has a few years on them have ADDED muscle doing “simple workouts”. Again like X said these guys are happy to be 150 lbs with the outline of some abs. They have no real interest in muscle and you can’t fill up a glass that’s already full if you get what I mean
[quote]debraD wrote:
I think my mindset that I was female and therefore was even more of a beginner and needed to work on the basics even more actually helped me a lot in the long run because I knew I couldn’t skip anything because I was lacking everywhere.[/quote]
Some of the dudes have female mindsets.
[quote]ckallander wrote:
I always found this site to be amazingly easy to navigate. Compared to other bodybuilding websites this one is a pleasure to use. [/quote]
Definetely