Post your best advice you would give a fellow iron soldier

[mrpecs]

This is the best advice i would give someone who is trying for a better body........chime in with your thoughts and advice


1. In my humble opinion, i'd say about 80% of people i see are overtraining. It is hard for us as Iron addicts to back off the frequency and/or volume of our training but we must realize that in order to build muscle U MUST RECOVER. Just becuase u dont feel sore the next day or day after does not mean u are recovered. there are numerous physiological changes the body must go through and even if the muscles are recovered sometimes your neuromuscular systym isnt recovered so you cant contract the muscle are hard as you should be leading to less wieght you can lift.

2. Nutrition/not enough calories........Id hope that since all of you frequent this board you know how important nutrition is for bodybuilding. it is of upmost importance to get enough protien, carbs, and yes fats. one of the things i see most are people not getting enough fat. you must eat fat, even saturated fat to get the most out of a training program. another thing is not enough calories. none of us want to get fat so some of us tend not to eat enough food to maintain metabolism.

3. following somone elses training program or a program they read in a magizine or on a board/ not switching up training methods.........i cant stress this enough. WE ALL RESPOND DIFFENTLY TO DIFFERENT TRAINING METHODS. you have to find the one that your body responds to the best. im not saying that you cant follow a routine found on this board you should try as many rountines as you want just find one thats right for you. doggcrapps method might work for me but you get nothing out of it. 5X5 might work for you but i get nothing out of it. Also your body will adapt you any program you throw at it so you must change it after you plateau. THIS INCLUDES CARDIO. if you feel you arent losing any body fat from running, switch to swimming. once you feel your body has adapted to swimming start biking

this is just what i think what do some of u think

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Eat, Lift, Sleep, repeat.

 

[Sigbjørn]

Stop reading Flex.

 

[mrpecs]

Stop reading Flex.

now that is the wisest thing i have ever heard

 

[Rabid_Goose]

A friend at work I used to lift with, but he never listens. His program is based off of the old BB split that people do, you know, arms/shoulders/back and then just arms/chest days. He has based his routine off of people from GNC and other gym rats, he believes doing peck deckz will increase his Bench #'s eventually. He does bench a good amount for his size, 170lbs and benches 240 for 3 reps, but he can do better.

I offered to help him Bench more, and several other people at work as long as they would eat more, and do squats/Deadlifts. But I'm still fat so they won't take my advice. My bench is only 190x5, moving to 195x3 today hopefully, and showing no signs of stopping, but they won't listen to me.

Everyone should Squat and Deadlift I think, Deadlifts are simply the best movement of weight I think. Nothing makes me feel more like a man then ripping a Barbell off of the floor.

 

[H_T_]

pretend you're the only one in the gym. that no one is watching, that no one cares what you're doing, or lifting. this is for self satisfaction. this is not a team sport. because when it comes down to it, you're always on your own, with only yourself to depend on. so make the best OF yourself....

 

[Klown]

Do not ignore the joy that is lifting heavy shit over your head. standing presses are your friend.

 

[blut wump]

Use the other hand from time to time.

 

[mrpecs]

Use the other hand from time to time.

LOL

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

Eat enough food. Protein being the most important to focus on. Carbs and fats are generally easy to get in good quantities.

Sleep 6-9 hours a night depending on your needs. I do fine on 6 hours a night, but I sleep 9-10 hours on the weekends.

Train hard. Focus on the big basics and add in isolation after the fact for rounding out your physique more.

Train more rather than less. Learn what your limit is. People throw around the term overtraining way too much nowadays. Any one of my friends that competed in high school and college sports would laugh at what many consider overtraining on this board.

In highschool I trained 5-6 days a week for 1.5-2 hours. Typically 3 exercises per body part for 3 sets of 6-12 reps. Most all sets taken to momentary failure.

I stalled after about a year, but I never lost strength. Many years later and I realize that I was not eating enough to fuel muscle growth and weight gain as I could not break 167lbs back then. I can tell you I did not feel overtrained and only ever even thought about that when I started reading all the Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer stuff which imho has so many people so paranoid about training too much that it's done as much harm as it has good.

Stay consistent and keep at it. If you have a day that you just don't feel too hot, get your ass to the gym anyway. I've had several kickass workouts where I felt like crap all day only to be invigorated by the workout. But, sometimes you still feel like crap. So what. Lift 75% of your normal weight. Do something. Go to the gym. I have to remind myself of this daily as I have had many bouts of inconsistency or just plain didn't lift for months. Over the many years of on/off training I've probably lost a good 3 years of training progress. Don't let this happen to you. Keep going. Keep playing. Be thankful you can even train.

Don't skip cardio. 3-4x a week of low to moderate intensity cardio will not hurt your gains if you eat enough. Infact it will help with your endurance to do more in the gym. You will utilize oxygen better and get better pumps and recover faster from workouts. Just don't go too hard on the cardio. If you make it anaerobic then that can negatively impact your performance when lifting unless your focus is to have a powerful anaerobic capacity and a good amount of muscle. Nothing wrong with that. If maximum strength/muscle is your goal, keep the cardio moderate-low intensity. It's good for you, kinda like tai chi.

I used to hate cardio. Now I realize my error.

Experiment. Try every exercise under the sun. See which seem to hit your muscles better. Lately I've come to realize that lying french presses just don't do it for me, but I love heavy weighted bench dips, close grip bench and overhead rope pulls for triceps and omfg, kickbacks. Figure out what works best for you.

Just my opinions.