In the beginning it’s all about spending as much time as possible working on the fundamentals. This is when everything feels awkward and painful, but it’s also when most of the progress occurs.
At this stage it’s all about consistency. More time spent practicing = more and faster improvements. And just like sports, the ‘growth’ will come in spurts. You will practice something over and over again, then one day you’ll just ‘get it’. The same thing happens with weight training, sometimes you just ‘beat’ a personal record, or add a couple pounds…it’s not magic, it’s a result of the last 3 months of ‘practice’.
But just like sports, the practice of weight training only gets you so far, or so big as the case may be. After a while the improvements come painfully slow. Even if you are practicing everyday. You may be practicing wrong, or simply have become as good you are going to get given the amount of time you have available to practice your sport.
Then there’s the giant pink elephant that nobody really likes to talk about: This could be ‘it’ for you.
And, science doesn’t know how to do it either. It’s a mystery. Call it genetics, call it luck, call it giftedness. Whatever it is, it escapes our understanding.
The same thing applies to building muscle.
It’s practice that gets results. The quality and the consistency of that practice determines the quality and degree of those results. But what separates the good from the great? We don’t know. We pretend too, but really…there is no answer.
So without sounding too cliche the goal is to become as good as YOU can be. If you compare yourself to the greatest of any sport, then there is no reason to ever even TRY, because most likely it’s a level you are never going to reach. But improving yourself? getting better for you – that is an excellent goal.
And just like any sport it’s consistency, proper execution and addressing (and working around) weaknesses that help you improve. It’s avoiding injuries, and pushing yourself out of your *current*comfort level. Progression, consistency and avoiding injury – those are the secrets to weight training..and getting better at almost anything.
Bottom line and reason for this email – Viewing your weight training like practice for a sport is an approach that I think will help a lot of people who have ‘lost their way’ when it comes to weight training.
The question you need to ask yourself is: If building muscle was a sport, what areas of your practice do you need to improve?
Think of areas such as consistency, intensity, exercise selection, improving weak areas, avoiding or dealing with nagging injuries.
Finally, to end with a couple cliches:
Practice makes permanent, and perfect practice makes perfect.
BP
