gymrat's blog

This guy just gets it.
So I thought I'd repost it here. The link to the author, who gets all the credit, ought to remain embedded.

Nothing I have not said somewhere above, but crammed into 5 priorities.

Egis Racinskas <– this is the author
Studied Certificate IV in Fitness (Graduated 2014)3y

I’ll make the educated guess that you intended to say “5 lifting rules you shouldn’t break.”
If that’s the case, then, freakn’ awesome. If not, then I’m about to write a worthless post :D
<note: original question was "what 5 rules should I break to get big">.

With that out of the way, let’s go through 5 lifting rules yous CAN NOT violate if you want to get big.
• DO NOT VIOLATE PRINCIPLE OF PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD

If your body doesn’t have a reason to grow, it will not grow (source[1]).
if you fuck around in the gym, if you don’t learn how to lift weights, you will not be able to load the muscle to the extent so it has to adapt by increasing size.
Your muscle will only grow if it’s put in a situation where it can’t move any more weight with the current size that it has.

Everything in your body is designed to adapt. Give it a reason to adapt.
If you are bench pressing 100 pounds this week, do 102 pounds next week for the same amount of reps. If you can’t do the same amount of reps, do it every week until you can and increase the weight again.

Constantly try to add a little bit more weight. Add MORE WEIGHT.
There is only one right way to train and that is training for progressive overload. Without it, everything falls apart.

You can do all the fancy-schmancy techniques that Arnold recommends – rest pauses, drop sets, supersets… None of it will help unless the weight is going up in the main compound lifts.
You don’t want to look like heaps of trainees who have trained for two years and ended up looking exactly the same.

Complete waste of time.

• PERFORM AT LEAST 10 SETS PER MUSCLE GROUP/WEEK
Training volume is the term used to describe how much work you do, such as the number of sets you perform for a muscle group over, say, week.
And from the current evidence that we have now, it seems that training volume is one of the most important factors for muscle growth.
In a recent meta-analysis (source[2]) by the hypertrophy expert Brad Schoenfeld et al it was found:
There is a clear dose-response relationship between volume and hypertrophy. In the three-way categorical model, performing 10+ sets produced almost twice the gains as performing less than 5 weekly sets per muscle (9.8% vs 5.4%). Performing 10+ weekly sets per muscle was also associated with a markedly greater increase in muscle mass compared to 5-9 sets (9.8% vs 6.6%).
However, it doesn’t mean that the more, the better. You want to find that sweet spot of training volume that works for YOU. If you are getting bigger by doing 12 sets/week, keep doing it!
Just like with everything, there are diminishing returns with increasing training volume. There is also this thing called maximum recoverable volume which you don’t want to cross.

• STRICT FORM & FULL ROM ALWAYS BEATS HIGHER LOAD (WEIGHT)
I see this every single day. Dudes are just piling plates on the bar just to perform a half-ass squats.
Not only that but a full range of motion (ROM) induces greater muscle damage than a partial range of motion (source[3]).

ROM should not be compromised for greater external loading (source[4]).
Just because you see Ronnie Coleman doing partials, it doesn’t mean he achieved his physique by doing that.

Always go for full ROM instead of partial. Don’t have the mobility to do full squats? Work on that! You don’t want to stack more weight on poor movement patterns.
That’s losing strategy.

So, always train with full ROM and if your body doesn’t allow you to, fix the issue first and then train!

• USE THE DELOAD
Each week you're accumulating fatigue. Sure you have rest days but after weeks of overloading. These just aren't enough.

A deload allows you to lower, fatigue and replenish nutrients that have been depleted. This step back, allows you to become training healthier and even stronger (tendons and ligaments in better shape).

So deloads are so key when it comes to training the right way.

However, many people do them wrong:
1. They don't cut training volume;
2. They cut calories down;
This makes deload useless.
The right way to deload is this:
1. Cut volume
2. Keep eating the same amount of food

• EAT, EAT, EAT
Technically isn’t part of training but training and eating right go hand in hand.
Guys think they can train simply trough force.

Then you see people who train only 60-70% of the effort in the gym but put the same amount of effort in nutrition and get way better results.

Nutrition and training compliment each other. It goes hand in hand – this is the fuel, this is the stimulus.

Take responsibility for your nutrition. If you don’t put the time and effort into nutrition, your training will be a waste of time.

Do yourself a favor and handle your nutrition.

Sure, there is more to it but these are the 5 that I believe are crucial. Without them, you’re just fucking around the gym without a real purpose.
If you would like to transform your body, Overcome Binge Eating and Achieve Food Freedom while also Losing Fat, contact me for guidance for sustainable, lifelong fat loss. Also, I have heaps of other material on my blog
and Instagram
accounts so make sure to check them out.

Footnotes
__________
[1] Periodized Resistance Training for Enhancing Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength: A Mini-Review
[2] Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
[3] Full Range of Motion Induces Greater Muscle Damage Than Partial Range of Motion in Elbow Flexion Exercise With Free Weights.
[4] Impact of Range of Motion During Ecologically Valid... : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research