We all started off not knowing much about lifting and I know my early training routines ended up kind of silly as a result.
For example. I can recall very dilgently performing behind the back barbell wrist curls on the smith machine. Needless to say it looked quite awkward as I kept racking the weight unintentionally(which I failed to take as a sign that I was training stupidly). I just liked how heavy I could go on it(*sigh).
How bout everyone else? Moments you look back on that serve as a testament to how green you were.
How about being so spent from flat bench and dips and decline bench that once you tackle the incline it either a) falls down in your lap or b) on your non-dominant left-hand side the bar doesn’t come up as fast and you watch in amazement as the plates slide all the way off the end of the bar and then before you realize it the plates get dumped off of the right side? I’ve seen that one happen a few times and yeah it happened to me… a long, long time ago.
How about ten sets of ten training, when you’re a scrwany ecto not eating too much? Triple strip set on breathing squats (and people wonder about why I had a stroke:)) )?
Doing 4 exercise, 3 sets of each?
Thinking only one type of training produces results and telling older people that 12 sets/bodypart (yes, this also means bis and tris) is the only way to train and that you must isolate muscles…And God forbid I would do a full body routine…Nope. Never. Split routines are the only way to train. Hey, I read so
Now I train with a waaay lower volume, a little more frequently, with an abbreviated program(I guess…aniway, one compound exercise/bodypart/s), and no longer push myself to the point where I can only hear blood rushing through my body, fall down, and hardly pick myself up. Must say I’m also seeing better progress…
A little off topic, but one thing I’ve learned is to always check out sites or programs that other people recommend. I’ve wasted years (mostly because of injuries) because I was too lazy to read an article or two.
Training in my bedroom and leaving my squat weight in the racks which, overnight started sinking into our 3-day-old wall-to-wall carpeting and come 3am… WHAM! The whole thing tipped over and tore an 8" chunk of carpet right out of the middle of my bedroom floor! I almost bit my tongue off when I jumped out of bed from a deep sleep!
Consistently doing 25+ set workouts whilst eating maybe 3 bad meals at most per day and wondering why I wasn’t seeing any gains.
After a few months of this I added some of the cheapest, nastiest protein powder I could find and grew a little gut whilst still having arms like a girls.
Yeah well my favorite from the years past was training for 2 hours every WO. Funny, I gained a lot of mass that way. I ate like a horse because I was in college and didnt know better. It was more like an accident that I got enough calories.
My other favorite is believing in only 2 muscle groups. Pecs and arms. Lucky I didnt end up looking like a light bulb. Good thing I was shown a least a few other good exercises even if not the best ones. I was totally against leg exercises until about two years ago. I had mammoth legs already so I didnt see the point. Hard to shred doing only upper body.
-T
[quote]hueyOT wrote:
pretty much everything i did when i just started was dumb.
dumbest thing would have to be tons of drops sets… focusing on muscular failure, the ‘pump’, arm days, etc…
[/quote]
That was me too. That and using the Smith machine for benches and squats. When I did free squats they were partials. I didn’t deadlift except for Romanians.
I was so stupid. Please forgive me. I have repented and I promise never to do the above nonsense again. (In my defense all that occurred several years ago.)
