I was a endurance sport athlete during my high school years. There is a lot I would change as I’m wiser and older but probably and honestly the outcome wouldn’t have been much different. I didn’t have the talent to be an Olympian.
I would definitely force myself to pick up a sport or something during my 20s, that’s my main regret. I didn’t do nothing until my 30th birthday.
I have trained quite consistently in the last 10 years, based on my goals of today yes I should have started eating more, don’t freak out for being lean all the time etc. But at the time I did what I enjoyed, I did CrossFit for 3 years and that’s what I wanted to do. So I’m quite happy with my young self decisions.
Not allowing myself to get so fat in the pursuit of strength. In hindsight I probably have more muscle now because of it, but it was a good 5 years of being fairly fat. Tying shoes was a PITA. I would have not eaten quite as much, and done cardio consistently.
Today we are fortunate to have solid programs to use and things to read and YouTube videos and podcasts to listen to about training that are freely available. I, like many on this site, learned mostly from watching big people do stuff. Sometimes it worked well, and other times it was a waste of time.
If I could start over again my path would start out something like below. It is more or less how I have gotten to where I am now but just with a lot more twists and turns and wasted efforts.
Pick One: Starting Strength, StrongLifts, GraySkull LP (3 months). DO NOT SWITCH after you pick. It doesn’t matter.
Learn the basic compound lifts and linear progression. Simple, Basic, and Effective.
Texas Method (6 months)
Practice undulation (Medium, Light, Heavy) and weekly load progression. 5x5’s, ever pushing towards you former 5RM can be brutal to recover from. Anyone talking shit about 5x5’s has never pushed them hard enough.
Super Squats (6 weeks)
Full Body with supplemental/accessory lifts. Exchange your 5x5’s for 1-2 sets of high reps and most importantly Squat Widowmakers. Learn that both suck in their own ways and it’s good for you mentally and physically. Also begin to learn the importance of food for recovery.
5/3/1 Building the Monolith (6 weeks)
5x5’s, Widowmakers, and AMRAPs in the same week. Program intensity undulates and waves so you can just barely survive week-to-week. Conditioning actually helps you recover before the next session and nutrition is critical to success.
5/3/1 BBB Challenge (3 Months)
Learn the importance of training economy and balance. If you put something in; you gotta take something else away. You can only have one goal, but you CAN work on things concurrently (mobility, strength, conditioning, recovery) but still prioritize the goal. Balance does not mean equal.
Conjugate (16 Weeks)
Take your training into the red line for intensity. Go nuts with unique training methods. Conjugate your training such that you build up to something big by working on the individual pieces and weak links.
Explore body building splits such as PPL, Upper/Lower, Whole Body + GAP, HIT, etc… and intensification methods like Rest-Pause, Super-Sets, Clusters, Waves, etc… now that you are strong and sort of big you need to add new muscle to keep getting stronger. Maybe give dieting a try too. See if you can get shredded.
If someone new followed the above path I believe they would have a good enough education in training, what can work, what doesn’t work, etc and are ready to experiment and figure the rest out as they go and continue to be a student of iron.
Some other finer points:
DO NOT become dogmatic about any training principles…it will hold you back.
Eat at least 2 “real” meals a day and probably more
Sleep more, and worry less
Do at least 2 days of easy Conditioning a week if you know what’s good for you. It will not hinder your training but actually help you recover if done right.
Find a good training partner and push each other to be better.
There are lots of other great programs out there that I didnt list, but these are the ones that I know will work (for me). This list begins with daily strength improvements in the beginning (SS/SL/GSLP), transitions to weekly improvements (Texas Method), to monthly improvements (5/3/1), and then in larger blocks (Conjugate) and periods (Bodybuilding). As you get stronger you should get bigger. If you eat right, recover, and keep up with conditioning you should stay pretty lean.
Man, how did I screw any of this up. Where is my Time Machine.
When I started I hardly knew anything more than the mere basics. There wasn’t much of any real source for information, so I felt much like a pioneer searching for the best physique I could find. All in all, I truly enjoyed the journey and would not do anything different. I would like to do a rerun.
Am I the only one that really didn’t have an issue with the muscle mag programs? I see the “I wish I hadn’t done them” sentiment a lot. I remember just seeing pretty vague “squat 3 x 10” type stuff, which seemed fine?
I’m not saying that’s something of genius, but neither was it particularly hampering.
Muscle mags were, no joke, the OG periodization. You got the magazine, did the program for a month until the next mag came out with a new program that you did for a month.
I think the only “issue” is that it was all ghost written “once in a moment” snapshots that in no way resembled how “the pros” were training/trained…but whatevs.
Not trained through (significant) pain. The issues I’ve accumulated are by far my greatest limiting factors in the gym, and most could have been avoided if I hadn’t been so stubborn. Looking back, it feels very stupid.
I liked them and got good results (probably because I was a teenager full of test ready to be used up) but think I could have done things more optimally and got even further. My main regret is focusing on size as a teen when I should have built the strength base first, then blast hypertrophy work.
Just enjoy the ride. Forget the numbers. Enjoy the hard work and the process and the progress. Stop thinking the destination is going to make you happy. ALL destinations are just waypoints.