Keep Focused On What Your Goals Are

I read training forums quite a bit. While most of them aren't worth a damn there are a few quality ones out there. One of the better ones is the Wannabebig forum. It is run by the At Large Nutrition supplement company. Normally that would give me pause because most supplement companies are nothing short of the biggest frauds in history. Seriously they peddle worthless shit for large sums of money to gullible people.

I cannot stress this enough, because I have people I consider friends in the industry that I absolutely think are shady as hell for their business practices. I could go on and on and I probably will in another article but that is not the purpose of this article. My only point is that when I say that At Large Nutrition and its owner Chris Mason is one of the few people in the industry I respect it means a lot.

The Wannabebig forum attracts a lot of big time powerlifters. On a regular basis Travis Bell, Vinny Dizenzo, Rob Luyando, and Matt Rhodes answer questions on the forum. Those names might not ring many bells for people that read this blog but suffice to say they are great powerlifters. The point being that when you ask for training advice on wannabebig you have some guys who know what they are talking about.

Most forums are full of idiots who have no business giving any sort of training advice to anyone. Hell 95% of training advice in general is downright horrible. All these self-professed gurus with bizarre training systems that all seem to contradict one another promoting mindless drivel. The truth is that training needs not be complicated, getting strong and in shape just requires hard work and dedication.

The one area I noticed a lot of people struggle with based on a lot of the questions that get asked on the forum is that of staying focused on what your goals are. People seem to want to try and serve two masters at once but honestly you need to set one goal and work towards that and the other things will fall in to place.

For instance a common statement made by new posters is that they want to lose belly fat and build muscle. That makes no sense because you either want to get bigger or smaller, you cannot do both at once, it is simple physics.

Now unless you are significantly overweight you should be looking to get bigger. Despite what the media tells you everyday, weakness and smallness is far more of a problem in this country than obesity. If you train to be strong and big and watch what you eat you will build muscle and get leaner over time but you cannot do both at one time. Get big and yoked and then watch what you eat and lean out. If you are a man and 185 lbs. what the fuck are you going to cut to? You can't flex bone just remember that.

A lot of people seem to ask about squat depth, use of lifting straps, and other things. I always wonder about people who ask these questions because unless you are planning on competing in powerlifting it really doesn't matter that much. That is where staying focused on what your goals are come in to play. If you want to compete in powerlifting then those things are very important, you cannot use straps in competition so you should rarely use them in training.

On the other hand if you are training just to build muscle it is silly not to use them on the last couple of very heavy sets. Say you are doing bent over rows, you are doing them to build a big thick back not to build your grip strength so use straps, your lats won't know the difference.

For that matter if your goal is to build muscle then you better be training like a bodybuilder. They are experts at building size and despite what a lot of internet gurus would have you believe, they know what the fuck they are doing. If you are training to be strong then train like a powerlifter. If you want to just be the best at excising then train like a crossfitter.

This guy plays real sports, he is not just trying to be the best at exercising

Seriously, don't train like a crossfitter. Figure out what your goals are and find a real training program that has periodization and cycles and stick with it. Don't get caught up in training a.d.d. and keep switching programs every couple of months, all that will guarantee is that you never know what works and what doesn't.

This goes well beyond just training by the way. In any aspect of life you have to stay focused on what your goals are and then work towards them. Set specific goals, not just "I want to make a lot of money." Instead say "I want to find a higher paying job" and then decide how to work towards that goal. Maybe you will go back to school, start submitting resumes, or whatever. The point is that you have to be clear what your goal is and to ask yourself will doing something get me closer to that goal or will it be pointless.

My goal is to be stronger. Some of the biggest strength gains are made by working with very heavy weights and low reps (with the conjugate method we do 3-4 sets of one rep at 90% of our one rep max and above). This is a rather simplistic explanation but generally true. To optimally train to build muscle mass rep ranges of 8-12 for multiple sets are ideal. Does that mean I only use low reps in my training because I train for strength? Nope, I train many lifts with higher rep ranges because a bigger muscle will be a stronger muscle. If my goal is simply to get bigger I would not use the lower rep ranges as it would be pointless. While building bigger muscles will give you bigger potential for strength gains, your strength gains will have less an impact on building bigger muscles and can be adequately covered by those repetition sets you are doing.

Those are extreme generalities but you can kind of see where I am getting at. Do those things that will help reach your goals. Those that have the biggest effect put your most energy into, and those with less effect put less energy into. The energy I expend doing max deadlift work is a hell of a lot more than what I spend doing 4 sets of 15 reps on leg extensions.