I wish I’d have discovered the Meadows programmes years ago as I love them but without running 531 and DC training I’m not sure I would have been ready for them.
To answer your other question, at this point in my training life I could do with personalised guidance these days. I’ve figured out a lot of what works for me by reading and trial and error BUT I could really do with someone to help look at my body and help me focus on my weak points. But at the same time I’m not a big fan of posting internet photos really so i don’t do that.
Looking at people on here though I’m 100% still in the average to intermediate place and loads of room to grow despite being 36 and training since the age of 16 (I would really call it all training though).
One thing I’m glad I didn’t know: injuries are cumulative. I think if I’d known, I’d have avoided my greatest hits.
For what I wish I knew: Internet (or magazine, back then) standards are ridiculous. There’s no rite of passage for deadlift ratio before you’re allowed to do lat pulldowns or whatever.
I was actually doing very well in a garage gym (1984-1994) doing routines like Joe Weiders Chart #6, but then I joined a commercial gym and I fell prey to all the misc equipment and training became so cluttered.
I also would have loved to have had a son to train.
Oh this is such a good question but also such a difficult one to answer as there are many things that would have saved me time and wasted effort if I had known them sooner. I think though if I had to pick just one thing I am going to say;
A competitive outlet for weight training.
I dont want to narrow it down and say powerlifting, Olympic, crossfit or strongman etc. I dont think it would have really mattered what the discipline was. But just training to compete at something rather than spinning my wheels trying to build muscle to look a certain way.
@cdep89 Interesting that you lacked open mindedness at the start. I was the opposite: EVERYTHING was a great idea when I started. I became elitist once I gained enough “knowledge” to be dangerous (Dunning-Kruger), and ended up having to spend several years to return to youthful ignorance.
@SvenG That’s a fantastic choice as well! It would be about book 3 I would give to a young trainee to set them up for life. I know for me, as a young trainee full of piss and vinegar, I needed Super Squats to challenge me and show me I wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought I was. Jim’s submaximal approach, as effective as it is, woudl hav ebeen blown off by stupid me, haha.
@ChongLordUno Very much appreciate those accolades. In turn, I learned a lot from observing Brian Alsruhe alongside some other titans. Iron sharpens Iron.
@davemccright Fantastic perspective regarding being “the easy gainer”. I was similar in a way: I just had to train hard and eat big and I grew. I used the “trick” of studying what the “hardgainers” were doing, figuring, if what they did worked for them, it would work REAL well for me. That’s actually what got me onto Super Squats in the first place.
@rugby_lifting Meadows was such an amazing resource. I never used his training protocols, but his nutritional ideas really turned the ship around as far as my health went, and that’s what’s wild: dude was a genius on BOTH sides of the equation, AND humble, and a fantastic ambassador. We didn’t deserve him.
@TrainForPain appreciate the nod at the thread dude! That rite of passage thing is a big one for sure. I’d also include it toward using belts, straps, sleeves, etc. You don’t need to “earn” any of this: go get yours.
@simo74 The competition aspect is HUGE. I grew SO much when I started competing.
For me, if I could go back in time and beat 14 year old me over the head with something, it’d be a foreman grill and a slowcooker. Things I can’t set the house on fire with that can still cook up anything I need to grow. I’d learn how to grill meat and slowcook meat and veggies.
I was just (kinda) talking about this the other day. I remember reading old articles (maybe by Wendler? Can’t remember) talking about being a skinny young kid and being totally in awe of the big guys in the gym, and also having to overcome some intimidation and just total non-acceptance in order to make any progress. Once they showed they were able to hang with the big guys, things changed. I never had that experience, but I was a skater (skateboards, not roller skates) as a kid, and going to the skate park was an almost frightening experience, haha. Dudes were swearing at you to get off the ramps they wanted to use, and giving menacing looks while smoking in the corner, and, rumor was in my town, “Smoky” would light kids’ fingers on fire if they got on his bad side. My buddy and I stuck it out and things ended up okay.
Maybe none of that made sense but I just think overcoming those uncomfortable situations to be able to fit in in the activity of your choice makes people tend to stick with an activity. If you can just show up and face zero obstacles in participating, you might not develop the…perseverance (?) you otherwise would.
A local college football player was the employee on duty at my local YMCA when I first went and for the first several months of my lifting career he provided so much by filling in as that “big guy at the gym” for me.
I’d want to know that I should eat 2 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight as a rough guide, that eggs and meat were the best sources but also cheese, milk and chickpeas, that I should avoid sugar so no Coke, no Red Bull and possibly less beer (younger me would have drunk beer anyway, but hey it worked for Arnold).
I’d like to have had a basic repertoire of breakfasts - eggs (in many ways, including omelettes) and basic variations on “meat and two veg” for dinners.
Then I wouldn’t have spent 10 years thinking I was a hardgainer, when actually I was a dumb eater.
Absolutely. Not to derail, but he was just the nicest guy in the world. He would answer questions even on like corporate career path and networking. Just a very genuine person who somehow survived the age of the internet jerk.
I remember quite early on I very, very loosely read Stronglifts 5x5, then I lectured a friend saying he should be doing 5x5 on his bicep curls. It became a bit of a petty argument but neither of us knew what we were on about. I was more rigid with my views on everything back then though. It can’t be understated how much the gym allowed me to grow outside of it as well, working on my character and different attributes of my psyche, it far outweighs any muscle gain but was 100% the gyms doing getting those embers started.
Nutrition was always an issue for me growing up. I chronically underate and let youth and cortisol power me through my first few decades. I feel like I am just now finally sorting out my eating issues. If not specifically the Vertical Diet, then something similar would have been great for me to have stumbled over when I was in my late teens/early twenties.
I suppose I am the oddball on this subject. Based on the knowledge available to me, I believe I made the correct choice doing all that I did when starting lifting weights.
Sure, there are many things I could have improved upon, but I don’t know where I could have found the information. I feel that I made the wisest decisions based on the information that I could access. It is sorta fun looking back on how my diet and training evolved through the 1970’s as new information became available.
Really happy to have you post on this, since you’ve been in the game for so long and accomplished so much.
Would you be willing to entertain the idea of “if you could go back in time and share something with your younger self” if that helps reframe things? Like, you walk in on 14 year old you, setting up for a set of bench press and say “Hey dummy! You should do THIS”
I don’t how I could change the value system I had acquired by 14 years of age. I was intimidated by two brothers who lived two houses from me. They lifted weights, and even lifted in their front yard from time to time. That was 1962. They kept my head on a swivel anytime I was outside. I was much faster than they were. I run out of any situation I found myself. It was so bad that on a walk back home their car past me and my heart stopped. The car past out of view. They car turned and I noticed only their mother was in the car. The two were in wait. (The origin of their hate for me was that my mother was a 5th grade school teacher who has sent them to the principal’s office on a couple occasions.)
So, bottom line: I totally ruled out ever lifting weights. It took me until I was 19 to consider lifting weights. I don’t see any circumstances that could have made that happen sooner.
This is a tough one, because I feel like I had to go through and experience so many different training approaches and goals to even knowing what I would have wanted. I have done marathons, boxing, pretty high level bodyweight-only training, extensive ring work, triathlons, barbell work, yoga, 531 programs extensively, kettlebell work, and now I’m really into learning OLY lifts and crossfit.
In all honesty, I don’t think there was anything that I could have had at the outset that would have made any difference. Give me the 531 Forever book back in the 90’s, and I don’t think I would have put it to good use. But, in ~2016, it was just what I needed.
