We have a problem in the fitness industry. Everything has to be black and white; there can’t be a gray area. Everyone wants to prescribe to a train of thought because there has to be one way to do things. That one way is usually the more comfortable method or the popular idea at the time. You see strength training is no different than high school, the popular kids do this and the geeks do that. Our close-minded thought process is the reason why frustration mounts every summer and we’re just not ready for the beach. Every training method offers something different and if we look closely enough, we’ll find that we can build a better body if we just steal and modify certain techniques.
From Bodybuilders
This is the culture that seems to steer people the wrong way most of the time so I’ll point out the good from them first. If you’re reading this, chances are that you are only interested in looking better and you are not alone. Naturally people will look to physique competitors to learn how to get leaner or bigger, hell it’s their job after all. The problem is that a bodybuilder’s only job is to train, nothing else. Without going too much into detail stress makes you fat and weak, they have less stress than you. Drugs are also a big issue, but if you don’t take them, you’re out of luck when you try to use their methods. Bodybuilding and build better bodies are two different and distinct ways of life, but we can learn a few precious things from them.
1. Bodypart training can be beneficial: Bodypart training has been getting slammed recently and it is well deserved. It just doesn’t make sense as to why we would rely on it for the majority of our training. We’ll get into the benefits of full body training later on, but we just aren’t doing enough workout often enough to get the results that we want. We don’t sleep, eat or go to bathroom once a week, so there is no reason to train once a week. However, when we need to full develop a specific muscle or want to subject our body to increased volume after a lower volume period, it can be our best friend. Growing is volume based; it means we need to fully strain a muscle in order to make it grow. Training everyday using body part splits isn’t going to do the trick, but using it for 4-6 weeks in a 12-16 week cycle can be beneficial.
2. Supplements can be great training aids but are no replacements for proper training and nutrition: You see this all the time, physique competitors advertising supplements. Maybe it’s an advertising issue, but we must use supplements because it takes us to the next level. Our issue is that we focus way too much on them to be magic makers instead of ‘supplements’. After all the word means “in addition to”, use them, but train and eat right and they will really be effective.
3. Focus on your diet to manipulate your body to look the way you want it to: Bodybuilders are the perfect example of this. While I hate the “bulk in the winter and cut in the spring” mentality, it just goes to show what nutrition can do for you. If you want to get lean, cycle carbs and if you want to grow, cycle carbs slightly differently. We don’t get the body results we want because we don’t approach nutrition as the key to our lean dreams. Taking drugs out of the equation, look how quickly a bodybuilder can transform their body. The recent work of my good friend Cassandra Forsythe at UCONN has showed that it is entirely possible to lose fat and build muscle at the same time while on a low carb diet. Focus on the carb cycling and adjust it as you see your body change. I’m not a big fan of aerobic work since I can get a client to low body fat levels with simple diet manipulations.
4. Spending time focusing on specific parts of the muscle is a waste of time: I know what you’re thinking; I just said that body part splits could be helpful. They can, but by that same breath to look good on the beach do we really need to focus on our long head of our triceps or vastus laterialis? Not really, focus on squatting, lunges, dipping and pressing and everything will fall into place. If we focus on specific areas of the muscle, we’re going to be fighting a losing battle and we’ll spend more time in the gym exhausting our adrenal glands even further. Body part splits are only going to be effective when done after successive weeks of total body training. The opposite is also true.
5. If we’re trying to go from lean to super lean, low intensity steady state cardio is probably our best bet: With the recent trend in the fitness industry to promote high intensity cardio, everyone in the ‘know’ has jumped on the bandwagon laughing at those people in the gym doing endless amounts of cardio. Yes I’m aware of EPOC and how it allows you to burn additional fat after the session by performing high intensity interval training. The problem is what if I am already at 10% body fat as a male or around 15% as a female? I have two options. First I can keep hammering away at high intensity cardio and lifting less weight when I train because I just can’t recover, all while I lose precious muscle mass and encourage stubborn body fat storage at the same time. On the other hand, I can go to more traditional steady state low intensity training and get at the stubborn body fat and keep my muscle. Now let me just say this, I hate agreeing with the know-it-alls who really don’t know anything, but I have to agree on this one.
From Powerlifters
If bodybuilding is too popular yet misunderstood, powerlifting is its complete opposite. No one picks up a powerlifting magazine because they want to look like the guy on the cover. If they do, it’s because they compete in the sport. Everyone can benefit from certain powerlifting principles. Maybe we don’t want to look like them, but I can apply these principles to a housewife and radically change her body.
6. We need to lift heavy things: Look around a typical gym, what do you see? A bunch of low intensity, high rep work. No one dares to lift something heavier than normal. I’m not going to change the world, but to lose fat we need to get stronger. It doesn’t have to be every exercise, just pick your first exercise and do it heavy. Heavy is relative, if you’ve never trained under 10 reps, then 6 is going to be heavy. Whatever it is, just do it heavier.