Continuum? What? You know—the never ending, unimaginative cycle of stupidity and stagnation. And well a lack of knowledge and an unwillingness to learn and listen. Still not following me? Got it. You must be stuck in the said continuum.

The continuum is the cycle that so many lifters—young and old—cling to. You start out super motivated and end up super depressed. You start out the year with such a peppy, gym happy attitude. You hit it hard for a month or two, performing the same workout six days a week with no visible gains to show for it. So you quietly slip out of the weightlifting scene for a couple of weeks. Of course at this point, looking in the mirror isn’t exactly pleasing. You definitely aren’t porno ready. After this sudden realization, your motivation is jump started back into action and you hit it hard once more. But here’s the problem—you’re doing exactly what you did the last time around. Someone famous once said something along the lines of, “If you keep doing the same shit, you’re only gonna get the same shit” Actually, there’s a solid possibility that I completely made that up. But never mind.

The sad fact of the matter is the truth of the above scenario. Grab five random lifters at a commercial gym and ask them what their program consists of. You’ll probably get a majority asking “Program?” If you’re too lazy for that road, hop on to any of the numerous fitness and exercise message boards floating around the online world. It won’t take you long to understand that I might actually have something here. I’m scrolling through a number of forums as I write this. Yes, I’m a multitasking genius. But seriously, I’m seeing thread titles such as “think I’m losing my muscle and mass…help please” and “cardio seven days a week?” And please, for all that is right and good in this world, do not get me started on the “Is this a good workout plan?” and “critique my plan” guys. These “plans” generally consist of a compound or two, nine isolation movements for the chest, and a period of planned mirror admiration time—to be repeated 5.5 days per week, not six. That would be overtraining. It just isn’t right.

So let’s end this continuum of doom and destruction. Well, terrible and shamefully clueless weightlifting. It’s gonna be a long and arduous journey through the next few paragraphs, but I’m fully confident that with a few strategically implemented mirror admiration breaks, we can get through this in one piece.

Perform to appear
Strength leads to growth. It’s commonsense. Increased neuromuscular efficiency leads to an increase in the poundage you’re able to throw around. Heavier weights tend to have a greater impact on cross sectional muscle areas. Duh. Think about it. Who’s going to be more apt to muscle gain—the tiny little chipmunk who has been squatting 135 for the past three years afraid that he will damage his knees if he makes the daring jump up to 165 or the guy over in the corner who has all but commandeered the squat rack and isn’t even bothering to rerack the 500-lb barbell draped across his back, instead choosing to drag it along with him to the water fountain? Okay, a bit extreme but you see what I'm saying, right? You need to build a solid foundation before you can truly realize your growth potential. Full body movements over isolation. Fast and intense movements over steady state cardio.

Heat to power
Heat what? Think synonyms. I’m talking about the warm up if you still haven’t caught on. This is something you’ll rarely see the iron dogs—you know, the guys who just stomp right into the gym with their muscle shirts ripping apart, ready to rock some biceps curls—do. But it’s definitely something that every lifter, regardless of size, strength, or goals, needs to pay attention to.

You have a million options in this category—soft tissue work, mobility exercises, and even specific warm ups. Do whatever floats your pretty little boat. Sure, some of these may be better in certain situations, but as long as you’re doing some kind of warm up, you’re most definitely on the right path.

By ignoring the warm-up aspect, you potentially lose out on a lot of power for that particular workout. Let me walk you through this. Let’s take me for instance. Recently, I’ve discovered that my glutes aren’t only weak, but they aren’t firing very well at all. This is especially evident in the deadlift as I reach lockout, where hip extension is trying to happen and my glutes just aren’t cooperating. A mobility-based warm up targeting the glutes—birddogs, bridge variations, and reverse lunges—allows the glutes to activate before I even start pulling. Personally, I think that’s much more effective than having them remain dormant and cold until I have 405 lbs on the bar, not to mention a hell of a lot safer, too.

Recover to achieve

How do you think your muscles are feeling after a ridiculously heavy max effort squat day? Your hams, glutes, and lower back are certainly fried, right? I hope so or I imagine you’re screwing something up. Your entire posterior chain probably wishes you a hot pepper to the eye. This is a bit of a side note, but I did manage to do this the other day, and the pain isn’t something I’d ever like to feel again. I’ll just leave it at that. Back to the point—recovery is another key factor in gym success that people often overlook. There are a few different ways to recover. There’s the good old idea of solid uninterrupted rest and soft tissue work via the devilishfoam roller, and GPP (general physical preparedness) or work capacity training. There isn’t much to say about the “sleep it off and eat a lot” recovery method, so let’s take a look at the other two.

Foam rolling: This is the exorcism of scar tissue build ups and adhesions within your muscles. You’re going to want to pay special attention to your problem areas but definitely give the full body a whirl the first time through. You might be surprised.

Work capacity: One of the most well-known GPP recovery methods is the sled drag. It’s utilized in many popular programs around the world and has proven its effectiveness time and again. A less commonly used active recovery tactic is the sledgehammer swing. Get an old tire and a good sized sledgehammer and beat the hell out of the tire alternating between your right and left arms or from overhead.

Be consistent with the foam rolling. Do it often and hard to keep the adhesions to a minimum. As for the active recovery, just remember to keep the intensity low. The goal here isn’t to get in a workout. In fact, you want to do the exact opposite. Work with a 50 percent mindset. This is
the only time I’ll tolerate that by the way!

Plan to motivate
A solid plan is one of the biggest factors in success. And by plan, I’m not only talking about your program here. Think goals. Goal setting has proven its effectiveness for millions of fitness enthusiasts out there, myself included. Busting through a goal of any type—whether it’s a long-term goal or a short-term goal—is one of the best motivational boosters out there.

So set goals for everything. Set posture goals. Set movement goals. Set stretching goals. Set lifting goals. And I could go on and on, but I'll spare you just this once. I’ll share with you an idea that I’ve stuck to for a number of years now—set some sort of goal for each individual week. This goal can be anything, even something as simple as “make it to the gym for my bench day.” Get creative but be reasonable. Be sure to set short, middle, and long-term goals. Your little baby goals might just be what keeps you from quitting.

Read to succeed
Read articles, books, and magazines. Soak up as much information as you possible can. You may think that it’s pointless for a recreational lifter such as yourself to spend his valuable free time reading, but I'm telling you, it definitely isn’t. I’ve learned more from reading articles and books by the best of the best—Mike Robertson, Eric Cressey, Alwyn Cosgrove, Chad Waterbury, and Dave Tate to name a few—than I have in any of my college kinesiology classes. In school, you get theory, but from these guys, you get theory and their “in the trenches” experience. You can’t beat that. And if you ever get the chance to interact with one of the smart guys in exercise out there, pick their brains long and hard. It will be beyond worthwhile.

Over the course of the past month, I’ve read just short of 50 articles, and I’ve finished two books with a third in progress. And the amount of knowledge that I’ve acquired over this month has been insurmountable. Well, it has been quite amazing to say the least. One more important note—in Lou Schuler’s (and Alwyn Cosgrove’s) relatively new book, The New Rules of Lifting, he gives some very important advice. Although not advice that you would expect an author to give, it’s very valuable. He asks that we “read everything in this book with at least a little skepticism.” Not only will this make you read more carefully, but it will eventually become habit. And that’s a good thing because there’s a lot of crap information in the fitness world. So read but read with a raised eyebrow.

Armed with this information, I fully expect you to venture out into the gym next week with a totally revamped mindset and break the continuum. Do me proud soldier.

References
Schuler Lou, Cosgrove Alwyn (2006) The New Rules of Lifting. New York: Penguin Group.