I would guess that I never did the optimal workout for me at any moment in my training. But I was striving to find and execute the optimal program.
I would guess that I made more good choices than bad choices. I would also guess that I achieved close to my genetic potential. But that is just a guess.
5’7.5”, 170lbs, 18 in. arms, lifting 15 years, competed in 2012
Surely you have a better picture of those 18” guns.
Tough but fair.
Feeling. Training at or close to failure.
Whatever my favorite influencer says that yours doesn’t
Not really, because
Which fed and weight class at the time out of curiosity ?
Lol no
As a huge nerd I love defining things.
And optimal is the ideal of training. Ideal where everything is where it should be all the time.
It’s of course just an ideal. Nothing that can be ever achieved. Maybe your training is optimal, but then you happen to sleep badly for a couple nights. We’ll, the training does not meet the criteria of optimal anymore.
So it’s not something someone can even achieve. Sure, you can get closer or farther for optimal. For the sake of example, let’s say a powerlifter training S/B/D for rep ranges from 1 to 10 has more optimized PL training compared to other powerlifter who is training PL with zumba classes.
BUT the problem emerges when you’re relatively close to optimal (which we all probably fit in), but you’re still stressing how to make things even more optimal. Just like @Andrewgen_Receptors said. If you go the gym and push things you want to improve consistently (wether it’s big arms via curls and tricep work or a huge DL via DLing, back and leg work), you’re close enough to “optimal”. Now you just need effort and time.
There’s plenty of difficult subjects in the world to ponder about. I personally feel lifting is not among those things.
I get the impression your questioning that messurment at that weight height and leaness . Or am I mistaken?
Where I’ve always found it silly is everyone uses the word as if it’s static. Optimal… for what goals? In what conditions? With what constraints? For who (whom?)? With what training/ injury history… and so on?
And, to your point, even then it has to shift by day. Did I sleep poorly last night? Lose a fight to a goose on the way in? Get distracted flexing in a window?
Exactly. The word itself has poor relevance to what we’re trying to achieve.
We live in unoptimized and variable reality, it’s impossible to have optimal training as a part of that.
Maybe we should just ask if our training good enough for our goals and with our individual recourses.
If those are 18” arms the picture distorts it to look closer to 15” arms.
I never measured 18” arms and that arm looks much smaller than mine.
Allow me to add something more. Concerning bodybuilding, it is much more important to have arms that look large than to have arms that measure “large” but don’t look large
numbers do NOT matter for hypertrophy, they are only the result. What matters is bringing the muscle to complete failure via exhaustion and upwards of 9-12 reps is needed for this to do it most effectively .
Oh yes im aware… I did my time in the Bodybuilding trenches as a youngster. 
He knows the best way to train to build muscles, just forgot to follow it.
This is one of those “my coach can beat up your coach” expressions of affection.
Its a matter of a few more posts before he starts waxing poetic with love in his eyes about Paul Carter or something.
is that your way of calling him a clown dick
Can I grow a bigger muscle with a 12RM of 225 or a 12RM of 405?
