Hypothetical Optimum Training

[Dissident]

i say Hypothetical because i never trained this way, and the reason i didn’t is because it would involve too much thinking.

when i started many decades ago i was very motivated to get best results but didn’t understand anything. now i understand a lot but am not motivated to get best results - i just want to stay reasonably fit.

by Hypothetical i mean WHAT IF i had the knowledge of my current 40-something self and the ambition and energy of my 20-something self ? how would i train ?

in my previous thread:

Why i don't use a split to train

i’m in my early to mid 40s and i been training in the gym and pool since 11 or 12 starting in Kiev, Ukraine, then in Brooklyn, NY then San Francisco Bay Area, then Long Island and currently in New Jersey … although i have used a traditional split ( i think the one i used the most was Legs, Back, Chest / Shoulders, Arms ) in the past with good results i no longer use a split, here is why. professional bodybuilders and regular gym rat fukbois use a split differently, but one thing they have in c…

i mentioned how i only do one exercise for legs, namely the Snatch. i do that because it gives me maximum benefit for minimum effort. by minimum effort i mean it is only one exercise i have to do and by maximum benefit i mean it hits my legs, back, shoulders, arms and also makes an unnecessary amount of noise which means all the girls have no choice but to look at me.

i wear Westone Musicians Earplugs under Bose 700 Noise Canceling headphones while making all this noise, so it doesn’t bother ME, but it’s fucking loud to everybody else. they are forced to put up with it because they can’t do it themselves so if they complain it will only make them look jealous.

but can a single exercise for entire half of my body ( lower body ) be really be optimum ? of course not.

if i was 20 i would at least also be running. running hits feet and calves in a way gym exercises can’t, especially if you do sprints in barefoot style shoes - but be careful - i was injured separately by doing sprints and by running in barefoot style shoes ( that is shoes that don’t cushion impact of your heel, forcing you to change your running style towards forefoot strike ) and if you do both at the same time you are almost guaranteed to be injured unless you been working up to it for about a year.

the other thing i would definitely add if i was motivated to be my best is unilateral lower body exercises such as lunges and kettlebell exercises done with one hand at a time. unilateral exercises put all sorts of twisting loads on your abdomen ( which will come in handy in the real world shoveling snow etc. ) but also in case of lunges they overload legs more because just one leg is doing most of the work. whereas regular leg exercises like deadlifts and squats may have your lower back give out before your legs do.

so if i was going to be this comprehensive about training, would i then go back to a split to make extra time for all these exercises ? nah, because that wouldn’t be brilliant enough. as i explain in:

Why i don't use a split to train

i’m in my early to mid 40s and i been training in the gym and pool since 11 or 12 starting in Kiev, Ukraine, then in Brooklyn, NY then San Francisco Bay Area, then Long Island and currently in New Jersey … although i have used a traditional split ( i think the one i used the most was Legs, Back, Chest / Shoulders, Arms ) in the past with good results i no longer use a split, here is why. professional bodybuilders and regular gym rat fukbois use a split differently, but one thing they have in c…

there is no clean way to split the body into bodyparts to train on different days, because of various overlaps.

and it gets worse - the better an exercise - the more it overlaps different body parts. the best exercises like running hit almost the entire body. the tragedy of split training ( having one day for each muscle group ) is that it pushes you towards isolation exercises.

this is perhaps one reason why CrossFit was successful - because there is no such a thing as a split in CrossFit - all the CrossFit exercises are big compound movements. bodybuilders used to laugh at poor “form” CrossFitters use on chin-ups for example … the average IQ of a bodybuilder is in the gutter as evidenced by the fact most of them can’t even get a GF … if bodybuilders possessed intelligence they would understand that “cheating” really means hitting extra muscle groups for free. The problem of course is that this cannot be understood within the framework of a split.

[Dissident]

we have to ask where does the whole isolation exercise thing come from ?

it was Mike Mentzer with his High Intensity training who argued the benefits of isolation exercises but he didn’t win and in fact he died at like my age. and he was himself brainwashed by the inventors of Nautilus machines who obviously was biased towards isolation machine exercises and in the years since Mentzer’s death bodybuilders have abandoned these principles.

reality is isolation exercises are great for selling machines, but not much else. well, they are also great at getting a sick pump in just that bicep peak, so in like 1% of your muscle mass.

a compound exercise like squat won’t give you the same kind of pump or burn as leg extensions or leg curls but it will literally make you vomit because it is ultimately a much more effective way to overload the body.

now … i am not an Ideologue … if you really want that perfect bicep peak for some reason then you probably will benefit from Nautilus style concentration curls … but to show that peak off you would have to be flexing your bicep, and by doing so you will already look like a faggot so it is basically useless for getting girls which is why bodybuilders are known as gymcels.

[Dissident]

so how would i actually train for cost no object best results ?

i would do a full body workout every day, or two full body workouts every day … but the actual exercises on every workout would be different.

so even though each workout would have legs in it one time it would be squats another deadlifts another lunges another kettlebells and so on … every single possible type of leg exercise would be used but not on the same day. instead on every workout there would be maybe 1 hour for legs, and you would do whatever exercises fit into that 1 hour. then on next workout you would continue with other leg exercises.

there would also be maximum randomness so different workouts would use different combinations of exercises and performed in different order so that no two workouts are the same.

in addition of course by default all training would only be at HALF intensity, because otherwise you would die. it is not physically possible to train legs at 100% intensity every day and not die.

so every day you would train all the muscle groups but using different exercises and in different order and at half intensity. you would only step up the intensity when you were certain that you can handle it based on feeling healthy and strong on a particular exercise on a particular day.

so you would continuously monitor how your body responds to training and ramp the intensity up when your body was giving you the green light, but holding back whenever you were getting mixed signals, and altogether just going through the motions with barely any intensity if you were obviously overtrained or injured.

[Dissident]

from another thread:

@kanyewest

What I am saying is that amateur lifters should make the most use of the equipment available to them at the gym.

so this is something i actually completely forgot about, because i currently train at a facility that has almost everything so i always train in the same physical location …

however one very good way to “split” your training would be to do full body workouts every time you train, but train at different facilities that will force a different workout on you …

so an example split:

mon - “hardcore” bodybuilding Gym
tue - Outdoor training ( park )
wed - YMCA
thur - Outdoor training ( beach )
fri - CrossFit box
sat - Outdoor training ( mountain hike )
sun - OFF

i just made that up as an example. you come up with your own version based on whatever is available in your area. for example maybe you can mountain bike in your area or maybe you can row a boat etc. whatever is popular in your area is probably worth trying.

the point is instead of splitting muscle groups you split physical locations / facilities and use each one to get as close to a full body workout as it allows.

of course if you notice for example that your legs are getting over-trained because they are getting hit by biking, running, hiking, bodybuilding and crossfit so like 5 times a week - you would modify your routine to address this. for example you could drop legs from your bodybuilding day as they would still be adequately trained on other days like your CrossFit days. or you could take the workouts that hit your legs the hardest and only do them every other week instead of every week etc.

the point is you don’t tell your body what to do - you listen to your body. you start by doing everything and then you back off where you need to.

actually there is a method in architecture ( which should be used more often ) where instead of designing pedestrian paths by arbitrarily drawing them on a site plan, you simply make a giant lawn and note where people destroy the grass with their footsteps - and that’s where you put the paved paths. in other words - you don’t tell people where to walk - you observe where they naturally do.

in “how i design my workout”

How i design my workout

OK, it’s going to be just one aspect of how i design my workout, but it’s an important one. Think of training as painting where every exercise is like a stroke of a brush - some exercises are large brushes and some are small brushes. A painter will always start with large brush and finish with small one. You will start a portrait by framing the head and shoulders with a large brush and finish by adding some sparkle to the eye and the ear ring with a tiny brush. a deadlift is like using a big…

i explain you start with large brushes and finish with small ones. so to use that concept in our context here you start with something relatively immovable like a hike ( meaning, you can’t really control which muscles get hit on a hike ) and then you finish with bodybuilding workout where you have complete control over what muscles get hit and you just use it to fill in any gaps from the bigger “brushes” like hiking, swimming, biking or even CrossFit.

start with the big cinder blocks then fill in the gaps with mortar.

what most guys are doing is basically trying to build the entire house out of mortar ( isolation exercises ) without using any structural material. this is the house they end up building:

they are just too stupid to understand it.

[Dissident]

@Dissident

actually there is a method in architecture ( which should be used more often ) where instead of designing pedestrian paths by arbitrarily drawing them on a site plan, you simply make a giant lawn and note where people destroy the grass with their footsteps - and that’s where you put the paved paths. in other words - you don’t tell people where to walk - you observe where they naturally do.

actually this can also be applied to exercises themselves. your body already contains its own use instructions. for example nobody has to teach animals how to have sex - they are born with that knowledge. also nobody has to teach children how to play - this play is how children develop physical fitness. human children and young animals alike do this.

you as an adult can also train intuitively like a child. you do not need a textbook showing you correct “form” for bicep curls. reality that curl itself is a completely made up exercise and there is an infinite number of different curls so any notion of “correct” form is absolute nonsense.

in fact the more efficient you become in producing isolated pump in your bicep peak doing Kai Greene style stretch and squeeze exercises the more disabled you become overall. Kai Greene at least is honest about the fact that these exercises are useless for anything other than winning bodybuilding contests.

PowerLifters on other hand are not so honest - they refuse to admit their exercises are useful only for winning powerlifting competitions, and instead want everybody to believe that they are developing “strength” whatever that means …

even worse are Gym Bros who can’t even figure out if they’re doing bodybuilding or powerlifting when they bench press. when they see an actual powerlifting competition they begin to whine “h0ly bad form batman!” as they watch world champions set world records in bench press. they are so confused about what it is they’re doing in the gym and why that frankly they are beyond hope.

sorry Gym Bro, but powerlifting isn’t strength and what you’re doing isn’t powerlifting either.

it’s like girls who take a shit then take off their slippers to weigh themselves in the morning as if that somehow makes them thinner. you’re only fooling yourselves.