What got you into the gym in the first place? Think back for a moment and try to remember what finally made you pick up your first weight or step onto your first treadmill. Many who started young were inspired by the great bodybuilding champions like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbu. Dreams of huge arms, chiseled chests, and a combination of making all men jealous and all women interested danced through their heads each night. The mass media bombardment that anorexia is the new in shape tended to drive the girls I knew straight to the dreaded treadmill/salad bar combination. Nonetheless, these people had goals. They may have been ill-defined, but they were goals. I believe that those goals were really what got us into the gym to begin with. Before we had an end goal in mind that required some barbells and running shoes, we would never have had a reason to darken the gym door.
I first got involved with lifting partly because my mom would workout in our neighborhood gym and partly due to competitive sports. Like many of you, I didn't have any coaching, I just did what came naturally. I didn't have clearly defined goals, I just wanted to be bigger and put more weight on the bar. I quickly realized that lifting, for me at least, was more fun and rewarding than the sports I was lifting to support. It was readily apparent though, that without a plan and particular goals, I would have a hard time making much progress.
Notice I didn't make any value judgments about the goal of training purely for aesthetics. If your goal is to train hard so you can be proud of how you look, that's fine by me. What you have to keep in mind is the Focus Principle. We'll say it this way: You can only do one thing at a time.
Here are the roughly 3 things that I see people wanting to do in the gym:
1. Get stronger. (Higher 1RM lifts.)
2. Get bigger. (Muscular hypertrophy.)
3. Get in shape (we'll include lose fat here since that's what most people who say that to me mean).
So why not go for all 3 goals at once? Because soon 3 goals will be 11 goals and none of them will be achieved. You only have so much time to go to the gym. You've probably had that argument with yourself at least once this week when you wanted to skip training for some other activity. If I have a limited amount of time to spend on my training, which I do, then I want to use it towards the goals that are most important to me.
What does that look like in real life? If I want to get stronger, I'll primarily plan my program around higher intensity/lower volume training. If I want to get bigger, I'll primarily plan my program around high intensity/high volume training. If I want to get in shape, I'll turn towards Crossfit. In other words, I pick a goal, then I plan my work accordingly.
Does this mean that I can't be big, strong, and in shape? No, not at all. It means that you're in it for the long game if you want all three (and who doesn't?). According to these oversimplified categories, I like to see newbies go from getting in shape, to getting stronger, to getting bigger, to bumping up getting in shape, and so on. Classical periodization would break that out into about 8 week cycles training towards a primary goal and maintaining current levels of the other goals. I think that's a great place to start.
What happens when you focus in on one thing? You get better at it. When people try to get in shape while building size, they tend to short circuit both processes at once. Remember, unless you have no responsibilities outside of the gym, you have limited training time. Use it to achieve specific goals rather than just farting around in the gym. Next time you're tempted to deviate from the plan, remember the Focus Principle and crush your goals instead.
I first got involved with lifting partly because my mom would workout in our neighborhood gym and partly due to competitive sports. Like many of you, I didn't have any coaching, I just did what came naturally. I didn't have clearly defined goals, I just wanted to be bigger and put more weight on the bar. I quickly realized that lifting, for me at least, was more fun and rewarding than the sports I was lifting to support. It was readily apparent though, that without a plan and particular goals, I would have a hard time making much progress.
Notice I didn't make any value judgments about the goal of training purely for aesthetics. If your goal is to train hard so you can be proud of how you look, that's fine by me. What you have to keep in mind is the Focus Principle. We'll say it this way: You can only do one thing at a time.
Here are the roughly 3 things that I see people wanting to do in the gym:
1. Get stronger. (Higher 1RM lifts.)
2. Get bigger. (Muscular hypertrophy.)
3. Get in shape (we'll include lose fat here since that's what most people who say that to me mean).
So why not go for all 3 goals at once? Because soon 3 goals will be 11 goals and none of them will be achieved. You only have so much time to go to the gym. You've probably had that argument with yourself at least once this week when you wanted to skip training for some other activity. If I have a limited amount of time to spend on my training, which I do, then I want to use it towards the goals that are most important to me.
What does that look like in real life? If I want to get stronger, I'll primarily plan my program around higher intensity/lower volume training. If I want to get bigger, I'll primarily plan my program around high intensity/high volume training. If I want to get in shape, I'll turn towards Crossfit. In other words, I pick a goal, then I plan my work accordingly.
Does this mean that I can't be big, strong, and in shape? No, not at all. It means that you're in it for the long game if you want all three (and who doesn't?). According to these oversimplified categories, I like to see newbies go from getting in shape, to getting stronger, to getting bigger, to bumping up getting in shape, and so on. Classical periodization would break that out into about 8 week cycles training towards a primary goal and maintaining current levels of the other goals. I think that's a great place to start.
What happens when you focus in on one thing? You get better at it. When people try to get in shape while building size, they tend to short circuit both processes at once. Remember, unless you have no responsibilities outside of the gym, you have limited training time. Use it to achieve specific goals rather than just farting around in the gym. Next time you're tempted to deviate from the plan, remember the Focus Principle and crush your goals instead.
