[quote]craze9 wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I’ve worked out at a lot of gyms. Dozens. Most of them have been commercial gyms. In my experience, if I see 100 different people in the gym over the course of a couple hours in the weight room, it’s likely that I will see anywhere between 0 and 5 people lifting with high intensity. The rest are not. They’re chatting it up with their lifting buddies, wandering around looking at machines, or doing dumbbell curls at every angle possible.
Simply by having enough interest in weight lifting to post/read on a website like this regularly puts a person in a small percentage of lifters. It’s easy to forget that we’re in the minority, but the truth is, we are.
Let me ask you this: how many people do you know who are willing to lift weights to the point of blacking out on a lift, or getting a nose bleed, or busting a blood vessel in the eye? Does that sound like something more than 1% of gym goers are willing to do, just to put a few extra pounds on the bar?
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I agree 100% with your general point about the average gymgoer. I would just frame it in terms of overall interest / effort / dedication, though – most people simply don’t do the work necessary to build significant strength/muscle.
I don’t like framing it in terms of “intensity” because I think that gets into the rather vague territory of subjective effort/focus on in-the-gym performance. Which I honestly don’t think is that big a factor. I have never vomited in the gym, blacked out, started bleeding, etc. (I did once completely lose vision after a wrestling practice, which was kind of cool, but besides the point.) So if that’s what we mean by intensity, I just don’t think it’s as important as 1) programming and 2) dedication over the long run.
You can have a weekend warrior who goes into the gym and busts his ass on a million sets of squats till he vomits, but I don’t think he’s going to make better progress than another guy quietly (even reluctantly) getting his volume in with 5 sets of 5 week after week.
When I look back at my progress and things I wish I’d done differently, it’s never – jeez, I wish I just lifted with more “intensity” that day I failed to set a PR. I wish I just “tried harder”… ?? It’s always programming or diet mistakes over multiple weeks or months.
There is some overlap between these concepts for sure, as in the guys who say Starting Strength doesn’t work because at the end of the day they don’t really want to add weight to the bar and go lift it 3x / week. But I do think the “intensity” thing is a bit overblown.
I have probably burst a blood vessel in my head bench pressing, but it was never the key to progress lol. In fact if that happens, I probably made a mistake with programming / recovery. [/quote]
Way to split hairs. We all know what Flippy meant. Also that odd example of the “weekend warrior” who squats till he pukes almost begs the question of DYEL.