I’ve had several articles published on EliteFTS.com, all from different point of views and different opinions. Some people agree with me and some disagree with me. In the end, who is really right? No one. And that’s the beauty of it. We all have different training philosophies. Here’s mine…
There isn’t just one way to train; there are many ways to train. Some people respond to low volume and others to high volume. Some people respond to hitting one muscle group once a week while the other muscles have to be hit two to three times a week. If your goal isn’t growth or strength and you just like to train, you’re pissing in the wind if you don’t have a game plan. But that’s just my opinion.
If you don’t’ have any intended goal, you can just train by preference. Many of my kettlebell clients train every day full body, four to five times a week. They didn’t start out that way, but we built them up to that point. Is it good to train that much? Sure, why not? Some people do manual labor eight to ten hours a day, five to six days a week. I’d like to think I could spend 45 minutes in the gym every day using the same muscles. Whether you know it or not, you train the same muscles every day anyway. You can try to break up your back, legs, chest, arms, and whatever other muscle group you want, but in the end you will still use all the muscle groups if you’re doing the movements properly. My point is, don’t knock someone’s training style unless they do everything but legs. That isn’t just stupid. It will also make you look funny.
I’m a bodybuilder and a powerlifter. At times, it’s hard to keep the two separate. In fact, you must be a very strong-minded person not to go crazy when it comes to keeping the two beliefs separate. I like to consider it fiction and nonfiction. Powerlifting is nonfiction and bodybuilding is fiction. Most people think you must keep them separate. They believe that if you do bodybuilding, you can’t be strong, and if you powerlift, you must be fat. Not the case at all. In fact, I’m going to try my best to combine both.
When I started out training, I was a meathead (still am). I just knew how to bench. I didn’t do legs, and I was the typical guy who I bash in all my articles. Over the years, I started getting certification after certification. My knowledge on anatomy and biomechanics grew. It became overwhelming. My training style constantly changed. If it wasn’t scientifically proven, I wasn’t doing it. At this point, my bodybuilding training started to suffer. I spent countless nights thinking and thinking about how to correct this and correct that
One day, I was reading Power to the People by Pavel Tsatsouline and I read something that put it all together for me. Pavel said keep things simple and don’t overanalyze things. This quote that he had in his book should sum it all up: “Before I knew the art of martial arts, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick. When I learned the art of martial arts, a punch was no longer a punch and a kick was no longer a kick. When I understood the art of martial arts, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick” (the legendary Bruce Lee).
This made me realize that I shouldn’t separate the science and art of bodybuilding and powerlifting but combine them and learn how to accept that not everything has to be perfect. A program doesn’t make you great. You make a program great.
This article is an excerpt from my book Be as Strong as You Look due out soon.