At some point, the lines were blurred, and the world became
covered in grey. Everything in
today’s society is over-analyzed and complex, with people spending more time
thinking, researching, and talking than acting. There is one place though, that a black and white approach
is still relevant. The gym. The weight never lies, and if you want
to pack on muscle, strength, and in general, just lift more weight toward whatever
goals you have, the answer may be simple:
Pick up heavy shit.
Sometimes it’s as black and white as loading up the bar with
some heavy ass weight and lifting it with violent intentions. So often in weightlifting, and just
about any other sport for that matter, people get bogged down in the details,
and it stops them from reaching their goals.
The fact is, the reason that people are constantly looking
for the next gimmick, the perfectly designed program, the magic bullet that
will give them the success they’re looking for is that it’s much easier to
spend your time searching for the easiest and simplest means to an end then to
admit to yourself that simple hard work and commitment will yield the best
results.
I hear it all the time. People will come up to me and tell me they’re starting a new
program, or they’re going to combine some of my programming with something else
they want to do, or they found a program on the Internet that’s going to change
their life. Program jumping is the
bane of the success of so many regular gym goers and athletes alike. An athlete who is completely dedicated
to a terrible program will be more successful then an athlete who jumps from
program to program.
This is especially relevant to people who are inexperienced
or relatively new to training.
When you are first starting out, it really doesn’t matter what you
do. As long as you are going in
the gym working hard and lifting heavy, you will see results. Programming becomes more important the
longer you train, as your body requires more specific training concepts in
order to fix weaknesses and break through plateaus. The reality is, that at the point that you are a serious and
seasoned lifter; you have learned through experience what works for you as a
lifter and what doesn’t.
I once heard Donny Shankle say, “Forget the program, there
is no program. Snatch and clean
and jerk, that’s the program.” He
was speaking specifically about young weightlifters, but the sentiment can be
applied to almost any aspect of training.
Unless you have been training for years there is no reason
to stress about programming. Pick
a program, one that you can stick to, and work it. I mean really work the damn thing. Get in the gym and bust your ass. Move heavy weight, progressively pushing your limits and
breaking personal records in reps, volume, intensity, etc. With hard work and commitment, anyone
can achieve results. This is a
case where paralysis by analysis is real, and I see it far too often.
Have the courage and mental fortitude to face the
truth: If you want results you
have to pay the price. Heavy
weight and hard work builds strong successful athletes, not programming.
Stop thinking, start lifting.
No comments:
Post a Comment