elitefts™ Sunday Edition
My mind wonders sometimes. Okay, a lot. My kids used to ask me why I don’t always have the radio on when I drive and why I don’t talk much when I drive. I'm thinking. I absolutely can't accept ideas or concepts without challenging them. When it comes to training and nutrition, it's like I'm programmed to not believe anything I hear until I can evaluate it myself. Are there others like me? If you don’t do this, why don’t you? Am I the weird one or are you?
It occurred to me the other day that most people tend to trust too many people without questioning ideas and concepts or at least applying them to evaluate for themselves. What if what you're being told is wrong? What if what you think is wrong? What if something you do is half right and if you adjusted it a bit more it would be 100 percent efficient?
What if in 1985 someone would have thought, "What if coconut oil is actually good for you?" What if people had listened more to John Parrillo about the importance of MCTs in the late 80s and early 90s? Some did but most didn’t. What if people had listened to the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) in 1988 when testosterone had a special asterisk next to it that said "this compound doesn’t increase sports performance?” Should that have simply been accepted as truth?
Sometimes when I get to thinking, I'm reminded that even after thirty years in this sport and training thousands of people, some questions still can’t be answered definitively. I don’t believe that you need to train as heavy as possible to gain muscle mass. Most would consider this blasphemy, especially considering a good amount of people reading this have a powerlifting background. Still, I say that I'm right and that intensity plays a huge part in muscular growth and even time under tension has some very valid arguments as well. I've seen too many guys, including myself, get stronger over the years and not grow as well as during times when strength didn't improve. We've all seen guys like Lee Labrada consistently incline bench with only 225 in his prime. Yet if I were to let any of you know that I only bench 225, I would be berated and called names that rhyme with ducking bussy.
What if I'm right? That means that many guys are wasting joints and risk of injury in the quest for more size when they really don’t need to. Phil Heath admits that Jay pulled him aside early in his career and told him to chill on the heavy dumbbells. His reasoning? You'll grow anyway. Do you want to injure yourself? He went on to say that pressing 130s would get the job done just as well as pressing 160s.
I don’t believe squats are the best way to grow bodybuilder legs. I would agree that it's probably the best way to get strong but not to build the most developed legs for bodybuilding. Sure, some of the best legs in bodybuilding have squatted for years, but ask yourself, are people with great legs made to squat or did the squats actually make their legs great? Platz squatted and his squat feats are legendary, but did the squats produce those legs or was he likely going to have those legs whether he did hacks or leg presses or squatted?
What if genetics determines your size and training form means almost nothing? How many times have you seen someone getting ready for nationals and he doesn't squat deep but has legs that are insane and blow yours away and you squat deep and have for years? We've all been “taught” that you absolutely must squat deep to get awesome legs, right? Are you sure that's the best move? What about the guy with incredible arms who does shitty curls or the guy with the awesome shoulders who only brings the dumbbells down to the top of his ears during a shoulder press? Could it be that all you have to do is stimulate growth through a partial range of motion? If this is true, wouldn’t that be a lot safer and better on the ego so that you can move more weight?
Everyone knows (or you should know) that a muscle’s most vulnerable position is in the stretched position because this is when the most muscle fibers are firing. What if this position could be avoided completely? Can you imagine how many injuries would be avoided?
What about nutrition? In 1985, hardly anyone was doing any sort of carbohydrate or calorie loading during a pre-contest diet. You basically tortured yourself and would go months without any cheat foods or scheduled high carb “loads.” These days, if you aren’t doing some kind of load to keep your metabolism amped up during a diet, you're in the large minority of antiquated dieting protocols. At some point, someone had to say, “What if?” And I think we can agree that there are a lot more ripped bodybuilders these days using newer protocols for dieting than there were in the past...maybe not at the pro level but certainly at the local, state, and regional levels.
What if you need more protein than 25 grams at any one meal? At some point, that one was shot out of the water years ago. What if you don’t need as many carbs as you think you do or that you have been told that you need? What if instead of cutting water for days before a show, you keep drinking it and stay hydrated and end up looking incredible?
What if the articles that you read about your favorite pro aren’t worth a damn because the rules are different for them? What if there isn't any difference in the end result from doing a dumbbell press for chest or a machine chest press? What if all curls develop the biceps the same way in the end? What if we're all simply over complicating everything we do?
My point to all this is that the “what iffers” are a large part of the reason why training and nutrition have advanced as much as they have. There are still many antiquated methods being used in this sport, but most of them have, thank God, been challenged or are currently being challenged. It isn’t even that the old ways don’t work. Some of them do and some things simply shouldn't change for that reason. However, that is for you to decide after evaluating it for yourself. Whether it's me giving advice or presenting information or anyone else in the industry who is well-respected or not, don't ever accept what anyone says without challenging it or evaluating it.
My son: “Dad!”
Me: “What?”
My son: “Can you turn up the radio and roll down the window?”
Me: “Sorry, I was thinking about something.”
After thirty years in this sport, I still ask what if…just sayin’.
