Idk about others, but I really don’t have any. I just eat what I like, which happens to be what others deem “clean” or “healthy”
For me, fatty meat is much more “dangerous “ than any junk food
Curious what you mean by this, but “effort” is not a linear thing. If one person is lifting 10 sets of 10 for 50 kilo, and another is running the same program but it is 10 sets of 10 reps for a 100 kilo, then that second person is using FAR more actual effort, even if both are at their perceived limits. The stronger you get, the harder it gets.
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Very true. I’m just saying that I don’t feel like I’m dying at the end of workouts that are supposed to crush me => I had more in the tank => I didn’t go hard enough
Also, I realize I’m weak
It isn’t to say that you are weak. But this might be the explanation for what you are talking about. The answer is not to do more work, the answer is to get stronger.
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Working on that
WHILE EATING SMARTLY, one might add =)
Which is rich coming from me, which is why I am ignoring Pwn’s nutrition questions for now.
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I train for a contest in 10 years time.
It means that I don’t make short-term decisions (don’t rush recovery from niggles, don’t get distracted by fads).
Then, consistency and simplicity.
Wonderful thread idea @T3hPwnisher! I have just one that I think hasn’t been covered:
BALANCE
This comes in many forms:
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Goals. being honest with myself about my goals, and what I’m willing to dedicate towards them. Time, hours in the gym/away from life, time spent in the kitchen and a diet that I can actually follow.
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Capability. I don’t care about being the Strongest, fastest, biggest, leanest, best, etc. I want to spend my life being capable of doing any task that life is going to throw my way (looking at you @Frank_C), and know that if things take a wrong turn I’ll be a man who can pull his weight. That’s why I train to be strong, look strong, be mobile and be well conditioned.
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Live life. I have no intention of depriving myself of any and all the joys of life has to offer - both immediate and future. I love beer, so damn it I’ll knock ‘em back with the best of ‘em. But, I also want to walk my future daughter down the aisle, so I’ll just knock ‘em back on weekends and train hard during the week.
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Priorities. the gym is a priority, and fits into life but ranks below other priorities. I skipped the gym to take my wife to her untrasound. An extreme example obviously lol, but my point is the iron will be there, and those little moments with family, friends and pets are fleeting.
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Good days and bad days are no excuse for not giving it your all. I like taking advantage of those good days when the weights are flying and the sun is shining, but still press hard when it’s not a good day. I blew out my back a few months ago on the first exercise, but trained for an hour after. The results with be different and modifications will be necessary intraworkout, but always try to give it 100% in whatever form it may manifest.
That’s enough rambling…
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I really like this one, and it was basically the only thing I was going to add to this thread.
The way I think about it is similar to Dan John’s “the body is one piece” thing. Your life is one piece, and every part will have an effect (however small) on other parts.
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‘Be prepared for change’
I realised some years ago I was incredibly anal about my workout routines and general training and dietary habits. While consistency is indeed key, it is important this mindset doesn’t actually constrain your ability to adapt to change, or even just think outside the box now and again.
By way of example, I can recall getting myself up for leg day only to arrive at the gym to find an unusually high amount of folks hogging the squat racks. This led to a crisis of decision-making. What to do? A different exercise? A different body part? Maybe just take a day off and come back tomorrow?
Now I am much more flexible in attitude and have enjoyed some excellent sessions just by being more open to change (and imaginative, of course). Indoor (hotel rooms doing handstand push ups and door pull ups); outdoors (jogging to a chin/dip station, working out and jogging back), etc. Similarly, why not train a body part every day? Or incorporate blood flow restriction, or strongman…? The list is endless.
The same is true of diet. I have been slavish to ideas that you ‘need’ carbs or that certain supplements are needed (at certain times), etc.
- I never thought I would go keto - I did.
- I never thought I would do IF - I did
- I never thought I would do longer fasts - I have (up to 5 days)
- I never thought I would do carnivore - I did
So while I do still tend to stick with what I believe works for me, I feel liberated by the idea I can run something different for a bit without losing focus or getting stressed.
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- Consistency–never, ever, under any circumstances, stop training.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t take a day off if you’re sick, but what I can never get behind is quitting training altogether. I’ve been through periods where I felt incredibly disheartened and unmotivated, but what kept me on track was always saying to myself, ‘nope, not training isn’t the answer.’
- Embrace the suck when dieting
This is pretty straightforward. If want to get very lean, you had better be ready to endure hunger, cravings, tiredness, and even hunger pangs at some point. I know it’s cliché, but I love the phrase, ‘hunger is the feeling of your fat leaving the body.’
- Embrace the suck when gaining mass
Yeah, it’s not like eating your way to nausea at every meal is any better than dieting. Still, that’s something you need to be willing to do it you want to grow.
- Get used to being uncomfortable
That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned on here over the past few years. This doesn’t need much of an explanation, either.
The real turning point is when you succeed at separating yourself from the discomfort: you acknowledge said sensation in your body, but you distance your self from it. It’s not easy and I don’t always succeed at it, but when you do it’s amazing and lets you push much much harder than you’d think you’re capable of.
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So the big three, for me, are absolutely:
1. Consistency
2. Effort
3. Goals
I’m going to drop some random sub-bullets that may serve as explanation to my thought process here, but they all align to one (or all) of the above.
- Don’t change your goals to match your effort, change your effort to meet your goals. I don’t remember who said this, probably a college coach or something, but it holds true. Once you’ve decided you’re going to do something, find a way to get there. I see it a lot nowadays with expectations-setting: people expect to fail and start looking for reasons to do so. If you hold that goal up first, you’re going to expect to get there, and you’ll find ways to do it.
- In line with the above, having goals gives you permission to do what you need to do because you’ll stay on track. If I am going to squat 500 lbs, and I injure my back or I’m traveling and can’t find a barbell, it’s no longer a reason to not do anything - I figure my quads and abs are my weak points so I hammer them. I get to keep moving forward.
- Tomorrow’s workout is more important than today’s. This one sounds like it’s only longevity-focused for us older folks, but it really isn’t. There is nothing magical that is going to happen today that achieves all our hopes and dreams, but we sure as hell can make do some damage and set ourselves back. Prepare for some dichotomy in the next bullet…
- There is no tomorrow (thanks, Apollo!); there ain’t no yesterday, either. The point being, it doesn’t matter what you did before (or tell yourself you were capable of), or what you think you’ll be tough enough to pull off “next time” - you only control right now. Show up and do what you’re supposed to do. Excuses like to snowball and become your mantra.
- You can really only get stronger or better conditioned - I said it. There are ways to apply this to different goals, (i.e. get stronger with higher rep ranges/ volume to maximize hypertrophy or get stronger and better conditioned in the lactic zone to improve your 400m speed), but those are really your levers. I think this is hugely freeing when we’re trying to pick what’s the perfect route.
- Following a pre-written program is awesome for me, because I don’t have to think about it. This helps me stay consistent, because that’s one less barrier to showing up, and to work hard, because I’m not questioning any of my own thought process. I still have permission to change whatever I feel like, as above.
- Know your own tendencies - we all tend to one side of the spectrum or another. If you tend to overdo it and burn out, you need to know those signs and prevent injury. If you never make progress, you probably tend toward not pushing hard enough and you need to account for that and find ways the program forces you out of your zone.
- “Starvation mode” isn’t the boogieman the Internet portrays; both common sense and relatively rigorous retrospective analyses on labor camps bear this out. I wrestled and went to Army schools, field exercises, and combat deployments where I ate extremely low calories with extremely high activity levels for weeks/ months - I sure didn’t gain weight.
- Overtraining is rare, but so is appropriately recovering. The discipline to plan your week and meals so that you hit each training session at your best (or whatever approximation is appropriate for the plan) is not common even among folks that have been at this quite awhile.
- Macros really don’t matter that much if you eat mostly unprocessed foods. On the other hand, calories matter so much more than all the other minutiae as to make them singly important. This doesn’t mean you have to count them every day to be successful, but we all know (I mean, come on) that we don’t have the unique body that defies physics when we aren’t seeing the weight change we want.
- When you want to do something, there’s probably somebody that has been there - maybe follow that path.
- This stuff matters in its own way. It doesn’t matter if you win your local strongman show or whatever, on its own, but committing yourself to a cause, embracing some suffering, and actually trying so that you can succeed or fail on your own merit (without sandbagging so you have an excuse) is probably what the entire human existence boils down to. While we’re at it, if you’re not taking care of yourself in some way (and your thing can be walks or yoga or whatever), you are passively saying you won’t take care of anything. Soldiers have to take care of themselves and their weapons first, even when it’s tempting to suck it and be heroic - if you go down, you’re not helping anyone and now you’re a burden. That attitude applies to broader society.
Sorry for the ramble, but the big three are definitely at the top.
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You seem to have misinterpreted the principle
Goblet squats was just there for examples sake.
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I agree that people need to be a little flexible, you can’t control who is doing what in the gym. I don’t think Goblet Squats are viable alternative selection here, and I think thaey are a fad exercise of the moment. The only thing I think that they are useful for is teaching someone to sit back in the squat when they literally aren’t really strong enough to execute correctly with a bar. It trains the motion so they can get to the real exercise. The actual Goblet Squat is not particularly effective as a replacement for squats. I see that as a problem. Yes you should be flexible, but you can’t do an inferior exercise and pretend that it did the same thing. This is what leads to some of the nonsense you see in commercial gyms. It might actually be better to not do legs on leg day but rather swap it for whatever the next workout should be and do legs instead of the next workout. this also provides a variation in routine and rest which can be a nice stimulus in training. Screwing with th erecovery period can do good things sometimes.
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Interesting topic. I’ve been at it for a couple decades, but really about 15 years of “training” compared to lifting/exercising.
For me:
1) Focus on progress, not on adding volume. This is a big mistake most make who don’t see any changes, and keep adding extra sloppy, loose sets rather than doing anything well. This is true for both body weight (progressing to pistol squats or one arm push ups) but of course also the big barbell lifts.
2) Focus on the longterm, and be consistent. Know how what you’re doing in the gym today will fit into where you are trying to get. Don’t kill yourself, but put in the work needed. This includes making sure mobility and conditioning is part of your week.
3) Know what’s important and what’s fluff. This seems so obvious, but isn’t. Many can barely bench press their bodyweight but are worried about progressing on tricep kickbacks. Know where to put your strongest efforts, and where to get in the reps.
Nutrition:
1) Eat real foods and don’t count calories. This is for me personally. I’m not trying to get stage ready, but I find if I eat nuts, fruits/veggies, grains, seeds, meat, and eggs I don’t need to worry about macros or calories and my weight stabilizes. Eating processed foods, even in similar calories, leads to weight gain in my experience.
That said, I’ve gained more than 10 lbs in the pandemic. I developed drop foot right before the pandemic, which forced me to be much more sedentary than usual. Also, my beer and cheat food intake has increased while being stuck at home. I’m actually looking forward to the challenge of getting back to being lean.
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I’ve got a pretty fun Frankenfoot myself. What happened?
I don’t want to derail this thread, so feel free to take this over to my log (or yours) or something if it turns into a conversation.
Training:
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I basically LARP train as the athlete I want to become. I am quite withdrawn from my identity when I train and I find myself to be a very weak person. The stronger I become, the less impressed I am at my own strength. It helps to envision myself as the best version of myself every time I step in the gym.
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Training and dieting trends fall away and new trends come into place and it’s best to accept them instead of fighting back for the old you. From 2012-2015 I trained so damn hard and through caution out the fucking window. I can only push that hard so much now. Might be due to the fact that my basic training weights are much heavier – or our bodies simply wane in enduring the beatings.
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Intraworkout nutrition goes an incredibly long way. In the same vein, electrolyte consumption. Covering your bases here is very important. I used to mostly cramp and vomit after brutal workouts in the heat. Now I only seldom do it
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My biggest training principle is volume and hypertrophy based training being an intense focus for long periods of athletic prep. This goes for powerlifters and strongmen primarily. I see some training logs and IG posts of PLers and strongmen doing clean and jerks and 2x2 deadlifts only to follow it up with the most unfocused and mentally withdrawn accessory workouts.
I feel like advanced and elite lifters can get away with less hypertrophy work (doing enough for maintenance), but newer and intermediate lifters should be doing intense bodybuilding sessions after sports specific training. I feel like there’s a cap on muscle mass that takes us to near our natural capabilities. We generally reach them around 10-15 years of hard training. Doing 3x12 with RPE 4 on tricep pushdowns after upper body session to get a “pump” will NEVER take you to your maximum potential.
Nutrition:
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When I remove sugar from my diet, I perform not as great. It seems there is always room for oreo’s, as long as I don’t get more than 500 calories worth (tricky).
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Not exactly nutrition, but fucking SLEEP. Sleep is literally steroids before anabolics. No amount of food or protein shakes will pick up the slack for lack of sleep.
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Vegetables have never made me stronger. Carbs always did.
Idk how long I will believe in any of this shit. Seems good for now.
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Every lifter has two lifting lives:
- the day you start lifting
- the day you stop caring what others are lifting or that they know you lift.
EDIT: I said this in the office this morning to a co-worker who was sipping a protein shake out of their coffee mug.
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I love this! Sometimes, when I get to the gym and I’m not feeling confident or start to worry all too much about what’s gonna be, what was supposed to be, etc., I just tell myself, “lay one brick now.”
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I dig this topic. A lot of my thoughts have been covered by other posters so I’ll include some that are a little broader in scope than strictly lifting, they’ll probably be more appropriate under the lens of Fitness Principles.
Just Do Something
I could not care less what your preferred avenue of fitness is, just pick something or somethings and get after it. Whatever you decide on will probably have some good aspects and some bad, you’ll meet some really cool and really lame people that share your interest, and there will be jokes about it on the internet you shouldn’t be offended by.
Get Started Now
It’s a Tuesday afternoon? Perfect time to start your diet or join the gym you’ve been considering. I’m not a fan of the “perfect time to start” mentality. The perfect time to start is when you decide you want to do something, not some future date that will undoubtedly get pushed further and further away.
Do What You Can
Lots of negative talk in regards to what can and cannot be done. The cannot is very popular, and apparently very strong. It’s worth acknowledging the things that cannot be done, and then focusing on the things that can be done. Do the things you can’t do when they become a possibility, but don’t mire in the cannot.
Most, Some, Few
Most things work for most people. Some things work for some people. A few things work for a few people. This is just a thought that I have that’s painful to try and put into words, but hopefully that’s clear enough.
Be Well Rounded
More of a life principle here. Fitness can become an obsessive hobby, understandably, but having other outlets and interests is good. If all you can have a conversation about is fitness topic du joir you’ll be a brutally boring person. Could actually apply the principle above here in that: most people don’t care, some people will be interested, a few will share your passion.
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