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By
Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems |
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Like
all fields of human endeavor, bodybuilding has accumulated
a vast collection of maxims— brief encapsulations of
truth which are intended to serve as memorable (and often
humorous) reminders of the proper way of doing things.
So, I thought I’d take a look at some of these time-worn
exonerations and see if these "kernels of truth"
are worth their weight, or better left unsaid.
One
short disclaimer: I was not able to identify the authors of
these statements, in every case, but wanted to give credit
whenever possible. In some cases, I have identified the person
thought to be author of a given statement. Any oversights
and/or inaccuracies are not intentional.
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"No pain, no gain"
This is perhaps the most classic,
most oft-quoted maxim from the world of bodybuilding. It refers
to the fact that you have to venture beyond your comfort level while
exercising in order to gain beneficial results.
Unfortunately, taken literally, this
maxim could be more harmful than helpful. It doesn’t take a
lot of intelligence to hurt yourself during a workout. It does,
however, take a reasonable measure of smarts plus common sense to
get results from your training. I also happen to think that most
weight trainingrelated injuries are not acute, but long-term damage
that you aren’t aware of until it’s too late. I recently
saw a photo of extreme fighter Frank Shamrock performing what he
called a "power clean" with a grip that was at least 12
inches too wide. In 10 or 15 years I’m sure he’ll wonder
why he’s in too much pain to lift anymore.
"No
brain, no gain"
An intelligent counter-point to the
above, and I agree: hard training is all but worthless if not conducted
intelligently.
"They'll
bury me big"
Translation: "I don’t care
if I die in the process, I will do anything to get freaky huge!"
It’s unfortunate how so many people will risk their health,
career potential, relationships, and pretty much everything else
for the one in a bizillian chance that they will ultimately win
the Mr/Ms Whatever contest. Self-actualized people, on the other
hand, train because of the rewards inherent in the process, not
for a result which will probably never come.
"Go
heavy or go home"
The idea that heavy weights must always
be used irrespective of everything else is a mistaken idea, even
for competitive lifters. Few athletes have the discipline to maintain
correct technique with truly heavy weights. This may explain why
Jimmy "the Iron Bull" Pallechia is so popular.
A much more refined approach, especially
for bodybuilders, is to find how to get the most results with the
lightest weights. Case in point: when Olympic weightlifter Joel
Senate came to me early this year, I increased his front squat by
26 pounds in 4 weeks by using only lunges— and the most additional
weight we used was 20 pound dumbbells!
"If
the bar ain't bendin' you're just pretendin’"
More of the same. I actually think
it takes a lot more discipline and fortitude to lift a moderate
weight to exhaustion with optimal technique than it does to lift
big weights with sloppy form.
"Refuse
to Lose"
Sounds nice as long as you’re
winning.
"Tough times
don't last— tough people do"
Ditto.
"Difficulty
is relative to your preparation"
I believe the author of this is Dan
Millman. I find this to be profound, and illustrative of a methodological
approach to training. It isn’t true in the literal sense—
some people can never be successful competitive bodybuilders, for
instance. But if you’ve identified challenging and realistic
goals for yourself, this maxim can serve as inspiration when you
have a hard time getting geared up for your next workout.
"Train,
don't strain"
This seems to suggest that you needn’t
work hard during exercise. The very definition of training is the
regular, planned application of stress for the purpose of causing
a desired adaptation. Of course, beginners or de-conditioned people
don’t need to push particularly hard at the beginning, so at
the most I’ll say that this is wise advice for beginners.
"Stimulate,
don't annihilate"
This one was often used by Lee Haney
on his television show. In order to make progress, you must expose
the body to slightly higher levels of stress that it is used to
experiencing. I think Haney has captured the essence of this truth
quite nicely.
"Train
for shape, and size will follow" (Sigmund Klein?)
The reverse makes more sense. Nevertheless,
your muscle shape is genetically pre-determined. You can’t
train for shape, no matter what anyone tells you. However, as a
muscle becomes larger, it’s shape does change (because now
the girth of the muscle is a greater percentage of its length),
but that change is pre-determined. Nevertheless, literally every
month, you’ll find an article about "peaking" your
biceps in some muscle mag.
"It's
all you!"
Whenever I hear someone yelling this
in the gym, I always look over to see someone struggling to pull
a bar off of his partner. As my colleague Dr. Sal Arria likes to
point out, most people can easily lift a 45 pound bar with two pinkies.
So the next time you tell your partner that you hardly helped him
at all, think again.
"I
don't want to get too big" (In
my best Jerry Sienfeld)
Is this really a problem for people?
This statement comes predominately from females who put shoulder
pads in their blouses. Go figure. Could you imagine enrolling in
a course or beginning some new endeavor saying "I’ll do
this as long as I don’t become too successful."? Don’t
use fear of success as an excuse for not training.
"Strength
built quickly is lost quickly"
In the strength training community,
it is generally accepted that high intensity strength training will
increase strength quickly, but this strength tends to be "unstable,"
or quickly eroding. High volume strength training increases strength
slowly, but strength gained in this manner tends to be more "permanent."
These two observations support the
concept of periodization, where a high intensity "peaking"
cycle follows a high volume "foundational" cycle of training
in order to exploit both types of adaptations. Incidentally, if
you have strength trained for many years, you’ll be able to
take a few months off, and be able to maintain your strength and
body composition quite well. Beginners can’t afford to do this
however.
"Quality
before quantity"
This is a beaut of a universal truth.
It applies to a workout just as much as it applies to a year or
an entire athletic career. Let’s say that you can perform about
6-7 pull-ups, but would love to be able to do 3 sets of 10 someday.
Most people simply try to add reps (quantity) every workout, which
usually leads nowhere because it doesn’t make you any stronger.
A better approach would be to use
lower reps (i.e., higher quality)— say down to 2-3 reps per
set (which may require that you use additional weight hooked to
a belt), and then gradually, add sets. After 3-4 weeks when you
can do in the neighborhood of 10-12 sets of 2-3 reps, try one all-out
set for reps and see what happens. I know you’ll be happy with
the result!
"First
isolate, then integrate" (Paul Chek)
This is an eloquent statement which
applies to the periodization of training. First make the individual
muscles strong (concentrating on the weakest ones), then use exercises
and patterns which require these muscles to work together in primal
movement patterns. As a twist on this, it may not be lack of strength
which limits your performance, but inadequate flexibility, endurance,
or proprioception. The basic idea is that each muscle must have
optimal performance parameters before it can bear its share of the
load in complex exercise patterns or sport skills.
"There
is no joy in victory, no sorrow in defeat"
This simply means that you shouldn’t
get too caught up in your successes or your failures. If you win,
it’s time to step up to the next level. If you lose, you need
to re-group, learn from your mistakes, and make a new plan of action.
Most people do just the opposite— when they win (or make progress),
they shrine off the training program that got them there, and vow
to do nothing else for the rest of their lives. When they lose (or
fail to make progress), they just shrug it off, and continue to
do the same thing that led to failure, but expecting a different
result.
"Train
slow, be slow"
I disagree— slow movements will
not hurt your speed any more than fast training will hurt your slowness.
If anything, movements performed at a slightly lower speed may have
an adverse effect on speed. Since no barbell movement can come anywhere
near the speed commonly used in most sports, why take the risk?
I always smile when I see martial artists and boxers performing
fast punches with dumbbells— these "punches" are
much slower than unweighted ones, so they don’t make you any
faster. And since the weights are so light, they also don’t
make you any stronger!
"If
it doesn't kill you, it will make you strong"
Or, it might injure you. This is a
totally inappropriate statement when applied to training.
"Pain
is weakness leaving the body"
I don’t know where this originated
from, but I like it, and it really has a degree of truth, doesn’t
it?
"Train
big, eat big, sleep big"
A good philosophy for people wishing
to gain weight and who aren’t too wrapped up in their current
job.
"There's
no such thing as overtraining, only undereating and undersleeping"
Another way to state the previous
maxim. However, it is possible to have a training schedule which
cannot be recovered from, particularly if there is insufficient
variation for long periods of time.
"God
made Nautilus machines to keep geeks off barbells" (Mike Burgener).
I’m sorry, but I always slip
into a grin whenever I hear this one— a guilty pleasure. However,
if we’re willing to be honest, machines can have a place in
everyone’s training. The problem is when people use machines
as "the path of least resistance," because that’s
what they are when overused or used for the wrong reasons. Many
fitness enterpeneurs have taken the machine psychology a few steps
further and have made a lot of money doing so— for example,
remember "toning tables"?
"Real
athletes sit down between their sets; everyone else sits down during
their sets"
A slam against bodybuilders from
the weightlifting community. Weightlifters, bodybuilders, and powerlifters
have more in common than they usually realize, however.
"Real
athletes lift standing up"
Another tear-jerker from the weightlifting
community. It refers to the fact that the Olympic lifts (snatch
and clean & jerk) are performed in a standing position. It’s
also a subtle dig against bench pressing, which admittedly has questionable
transfer to most athletic and everyday activities.
"Bodybuilders...
Big for Nothin!'"
Few bodybuilders have so much mass
that it impairs their everyday functioning, so this statement has
no relevance in my mind. The vast majority of people would do well
with more muscle, not less.
"7
days without a workout makes one weak."
Convenient play on words, but it only
applies to beginners. Otherwise, an occasional week off helps more
than it hurts. For example, my Olympic weightlifters normally train
between 46 and 48 weeks a year.
"The
difficulty of an exercise is proportional to its value" (Eric
Burkhardt)
There is enormous truth in this. How
rarely I see people squatting, or chinning, or performing step-ups.
How common it is to see people making a career out of what they
already do best— limber women who concentrate on stretching,
thick-chested men who do nothing but bench press.
"If
you're in the gym more than an hour, you're not training, you're
making friends" (Charles Poliquin).
Charles is dead-on with this statement.
If you are genuinely training, it’s hard to spend much more
than an hour at the gym. I find it remarkable that people who use
the gym for serious training are considered "hard core,"
while people who use it for socializing and reading the morning
paper are considered much more rational.
"Agonize.
Don't socialize" (Eric Burkhardt)
Another nice way to say the above.
"If
in doubt, add more weight"
No logic here, but what else is new?
I’d rather say "If in doubt, congratulate yourself because
at least you have some inkling that maybe you’re doing it wrong"!
"Do
as many as you can, and then three more"
An old coaches maxim to get across
the idea of maximal effort. However, I must emphasize that your
exercise technique should be the same from your first to your last
rep. If any aspect changes— speed, range of motion, posture,
etc.— it means you hit failure and then found some way of altering
your technique in order to complete more reps. The possible exception
to this rule is when using Tellekinetics,
which in effect, is a scientific form of cheating.
"You
can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe"
This is from Dr. Fred Hatfield, president
of the International Sports Sciences Association. He’s referring
to the fact that you must have a superior "base" (read:
leg strength) in order to be able to exploit your upper body strength.
In fact, many top bodybuilders throughout the years have preached
heavy lower body work for both lower and upper body gains.
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"Squats
are king of all exercises"
No exercise is the King of
anything. Squats are a valuable tool for lots of people.
However, they cannot be properly performed by others. Over-glorifying
one exercise causes others to be ignored. Think of exercises
as tools, which have utility when used appropriately in
the right situations.
"Just
do it"
I see everyone just doing
it...improperly. Odd how such a non-descript little saying
became so popular.
Conclusion
Weight training is not unique
with regards to the kinds of proclamations we’ve looked
at in this article. Other fields of endeavor have their
own pearls of wisdom as well. The trick is to separate the
truth from the fiction; to use what is useful and discard
the rest.
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About
The Author
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His colleagues call him
an iconoclast, a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients
call him “The Secret Weapon” for his ability
to see what other coaches miss. Charles calls himself
a “geek” who struggled in Phys Ed throughout
school. Whatever you call him, Charles’ methods are
ahead of their time and quickly produce serious results.
His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing demeanor
have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY Show
and The CBS Early Show.
Currently, Charles competes
in Olympic-style weightlifting on the master’s circuit,
with a 3-year goal of qualifying for the 2009 Master’s
World Championships.
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