By Eric and Chris Martinez
Jan. 5. 2010-
When you’ve been in the game long enough, you are able to see the big picture as it pertains to strength and conditioning. You discover that consistency might be the most critical component of your results and that the best lifters vary their workouts. Many people think they have it all down, but still no results as they venture around the gym daily working their asses off. Big and Strong, what does this exactly mean? We are sure everyone has their positives and negatives about it. To us it means having power and making consistent gains by pushing yourself and making no bull shit excuses. Here are some five tips that will benefit you in the long run.
1. Do it Naturally and Struggle
We believe that lifters should make educated decisions on performance enhancing drugs (PED’s), they are so powerful and have many negative side effects such as:
-Interference with blood pressure
-Temperament
-Low libido
– Low self confidence to where it can really jeopardize your health in the long run
Although we do not judge lifters that take PED’s because it is their personal choice and if they want to make serious gains faster so be it, it’s their body and health they have to deal with. Personally when we are lifting heavy we enjoy that struggle and pain to lift more weight, there’s no better feeling knowing you get great results naturally. So our advice is do it naturally and just work your ass off, we promise it will pay off eventually.
2. Use the “ Big 7” to Gain Weight and Strength Slowly
The most important aspect of gaining muscle is to make sure your weight gains are always accompanied by strength gains in the “Big Compound Lifts”, such as:
-Squats
-Deadlifts
-Bench Press
-Bent over rows
-Military Press
-Weighted Dips
-Weighted Pull-ups
We encourage you to substitute variations of workouts such as dumbbells and some machines at times to switch it up and keep making proper adaptations. However, you must make sure you’re consistently getting stronger at the big lifts over time to ensure that the weight you pack on consists of muscle and not fat. Clean weight and muscle takes years, not month’s people.
3. Think Long Term Joint health
A young lifter rarely thinks about joint health when lifting. A large percentage of lifters are forced to stop lifting due to such strenuous workouts over the years on their joints. We need to be aware to take good care of our joints from the get go and this will allow us to workout longer in life pain free. Joints require mobility, stability, and motor control; basically we can’t do much lifting if they are in constant pain. So perform dynamic warm-ups every time before you lift for at least 15-20 minutes, stay on top of mobility drills, self myofascial release therapy, and make sure your form is superb when performing exercises, can’t stress that enough.
4. Never Stray Too Far From What Works
Due to variable genetics and training status, every individual responds best to his or her program. Exercise selection, volume, intensity, and frequency are some of the variables that should be dealt with by all lifters in attempt to fine tune their programs. A good program always focuses on the big basics, and there are many ways to do them. In a body part split routine, big compound workouts should be placed first, due to how strenuous these workouts are on your body. We believe it is critical that you find a workout routine that you enjoy best, or else you will become bored, not work as hard, lose consistency, and eventually just quit.
5. Make Strength Training your job
-The single most important factor in getting and staying big and strong is consistency and more consistency! It takes years to form those “mind-muscle connections” and to learn how to properly coordinate the activation of your muscles. You have to see this as a job pretty much, even though you don’t get paid money, you benefit in such a better way looks wise and self esteem wise. This takes motivation and determination and we truly believe everyone can do it if they put their mind to it and get their lazy asses off the couch and stop making lame excuses.
Wrap Up
So there’s your 5 keys, hopefully this will help motivate you, make wiser decisions so you can be in the game for the long haul, help pack on some muscle mass, increase strength, and of course make it all fun 🙂
BONUS TIP
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A PROPER PERIODIZED TRAINING PROTOCOL THEN CHECK OUT OUR 12 WEEK DOWNLOADABLE TRAINING ROUTINE
