This might be a fun topic based on some or chats (and I know we’ve done versions of this): what dogma or belief did you discard that was previously holding you back?
Conversely, is there a “truth” you’re clinging to now that you think is moving you forward (published evidence be damned)?
Ironically, the hyper-minimalist focus: squat, bench, deadlift or snatch, clean & jerk. Or also think hyper-minimalist "strength training " a la Pavel’s stuff.
But this also got to me good places. On strength. But the associated damage? Not so good as we age.
It was hard to “let go” of some of those movements or close variants (think: back squats, power cleans/snatches, most benching, etc) that were just not serving ME well anymore.
I was stuck in the “you MUST do these movements or you’re just fucking around or bodybuilding”.
Thankfully, I’ve listened. At the age of 44. My much scarred and battered body reminds me.
Too much volume
This is tough! Especially when it worked so well to get you to where you are. It’s very hard to take an honest assessment of “I’m doing X and not getting Y… maybe X has to change.”
I was clinging to Nautilus principles as if I had found the holy grail. I had thought that the Nautilus cam was all that I needed and the Nautilus pullover machine was the best of the lying barbell pullover and the bent over barbell row all rolled into a single exercise machine. With pre-exhausted dumbbell flies before bench pressing having set my bench press going in the wrong direction, I was not pleased.
My fellow lifters appealed to my common sense that going with what got all the greats using free weights and moving a lot of weight was the tried and true method. Heavy squats, heavy bench presses, heavy OHPs, heavy curls, heavy skull crushers, and weighted pull-ups, etc heavy. I was once again getting bigger, getting stronger, and staying lean. I was back on track.
In my youth … too much volume thanks to Arnolds encyclopedia.
Lack of general understanding of nutrition.
Mind you this was late 80’s. I thought eating fats would make you fat… diet of tuna … skim milk and egg whites and allot of baked potatoes 
This seems to be contrary to what a lot of other people here are saying but: the thought that natties shouldn’t do high volume. My body just seems to respond really really well to it every time I’ve cranked the volume up, almost like a sponge soaking up water. It definitely has me feeling like I was leaving gains on the table the couple of years I spent focusing on HIT methodology, including when I joined the forum.
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy … swelling … or were you adding actual muscle ?? I did much better on low volume
Thinking everything had to be perfect or you couldn’t make progress.
I’m assuming both. I’m up 15 pounds from my HIT days in 2020-2021 at a leaner bodyfat. I’m not trying to take away from anyone else’s experiences, but this is just my own. It’s also a very fun way to train
Not eating enough
Not knowing some exercises work well for me - overhead lifts, Kroc rows, weighty dips
Not deadlifting first two years because it was not in the book I first used
Losing some strength during Covid
Doing more floor presses and trap deadlifts means I have little joint pain after many years of using heavy weights, but my bench suffered as I lost some strength at the chest
Two years of CrossFit made me fitter and taught me O-lifting, but cost me strength in traditional lifts
Wish I discovered cardio climbing earlier
Yo-yo dieting. Lack of discipline. Jumping back and forth from 531 to bodybuilding style training when my diet changed. I think they call that spinning your wheels.
I have done a lot of that. 
I LOVE this topic. What a great idea.
I’ve held myself back so many times. I’d say the biggest thing is “not listening to myself”. Similar to Dan John’s statement of “it worked so well I quit doing it”, I’ve had many moments in my training career where I discovered gold, just to throw it aside and move onto the next shiny object.
For me, one of those big ones is ROM progression deadlifts. It has ALWAYS worked to make my deadlift get stronger, and if I just stick with it I’ll get results, but I’ve abandoned it many times. Sometimes it’s because the program I’m running doesn’t use it (5/3/1 BBB or Building the Monolith, Deep Water, etc) and I wanna stick with the program. Other times, it’s because I just want to do something else (trap bar pulls, max effort pulls, etc), but every time I stray from it, I just don’t get the same results.
Not taking the time to learn how to cook REALLY held me back. I ate WAAAAY too much fast/processed foods coming up into my training, because I was too lazy to take the time to just make my own meals, and was addicted to the convenience and taste of fast/processed foods. I truly had an addiction, as I remember I’d frequently would eat these things simply because I didn’t have anything else to do. Show up early for an appointment? Might as well swing into Burger King and get a few cheeseburgers while I wait (don’t worry, I threw away the buns, so they’re healthy, right?)
I held myself back by hiding from heavy weights these past few years. I radically changed my diet, and in doing so I stopped doing the kind of training I was doing before, because I didn’t want to get in my head about strength loss with bodyweight drop…but in doing that, I created a negative feedback loop wherein I DID lose strength. I shifted my focus to more crossfitty WOD type stuff, and though it was fun, if I had just done some abbreviated training like Tactical Barbell, I feel like I could have kept a lot of strength during that time.
Which, when I look back on it, I REALLY had things figured out when I was about 20 years old. Someone had given me a copy of Pavel Tsastouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding” book, and I drank the Pavel Koolaid like @sirdanoman mentioned and kept the reps to 5 or fewer and only did the big compounds. BUT, once I stalled out enough, I’d switch to Westside Barbell for Skinny Bastards (which I read about here on t-nation) and would run that for about 6 months before getting back to Pavel. And really, that was the most basic and probably solid periodization I could have done at that age…or any age. Spend some months keeping the training abbreviated and focused, and then some months spending time with assistance, GPP, max strength and repetition effort, then just keep switching. If I had stuck with that from age 20 to now, I probably would be further ahead than I am now.
But, of course, it’s not the destination but the journey. I learned a LOT from all the sidequests I took along the way, and I wouldn’t trade those first experiences with Super Squats, Deep Water, Building the Monolith, DoggCrapp, etc. And I definitely learned a lot from them that can’t be learned academically. But if I could, it’d be awesome if I could just Matrix all that experience and information into my brain and run the stuff that works.
That’s solid. Good for you. I still balance hard grappling, mma with weights so it’s always a learning experience
Just watched a Pavel video about minimalist training. What’s your opinion of his methods?
They work.
My answer to this will evolve as i get closer to my show.
It doesnt matter whether it’s fair or harder for you than someone else, if you want the results - you have to do what takes to get them. “Fair” does not exist.
Not seeing my coach (previous) as being on my side.
Not following the plan and trusting the process.
Masking my pessimism about most things (fitness and otherwise) as realism, when optimism is a far superior belief system.
Not signing up for a competition sooner.
A big one was chasing the rabit with respect to other coaches and methods while actively working with a coach… sows distrust in the current process.
Not sleeping enough.
Thank you sir! I feel like I’m in the same boat, just trying to keep learning. My training would probably change a bit if I were to get back to hard Grappling throughout the week
In the first years of my training, checked these boxes out one by one as I learned more:
Thinking too much about recovery. Fearing of doing too much or too hard.
Focusing too much about the programming and not enough in the execution. Thinking that programs matter more than they do.
Focusing too much on heavy powerlifts with low rep ranges and not build enough muscle with movements better suited for the purpose.
Not focusing enough on nutrition and sleep.
Currently:
sometimes emphazising too little about recovery and pushing until performance crushes or I get hurt.
Having only 3 to 6 months focus on certain style of training. I probably would benefit focusing more on something for at least for a year or two.
-Wasting too much money on supplements
-Following the high volume routines in the magazines
-Following Arnies and Francos 6 day a week training
-Too many calories and not believing how important rest and recuperation was
