View Single Post
 
Old 07-07-2007, 11:46 AM
Riddick2112 Riddick2112 is offline
Rank: Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: vermont
Posts: 235
Default

some more excellent points Eric!
I would add that the whole "cookie-cutter" mentality is also reinforced by the muscle mags and even more so by the myriad training books avalilabe out there. everyone is trying to "sell" the idea that their method is best and they use pics of genetic supermen and/or drug addled pros to convince us that it will work for US too.
personally I bought into that whole load of crap with Mike Mentzer's Heavy-Duty. i thought I had found the freakin Rosetta Stone of training and plugged away for almost 5 years with it before finally waking up and smelling the coffee! The notion that one can train in a linear fashion with 2-3 sets only once a week until they reach their genetic potential seems so absurd to me now! I honestly cant believe i thought it was possible, lol!
that being said, there were some positive aspects to training with that method and it's interesting for me to note that the PR day in the Texas method is very, very similar to a HD training session, i.e. low volume-max effort training.
ironically it was the internet that was my saving grace and got me on the right track with my training and progress is finally coming on a pretty regular basis!
HD, or more specifically the "Consolidated routine", had left me so de-trained and de-conditioned that i was able to restart with something closely resembling Rip's Starting Strength program and have been using it since Jan 2007 (with a short higher volume cycle thrown in the mix to break things up a bit)
this is not intended as an anit-HIT tirade but merely to illustrate the danger of the "Golden Program" mentality and how it can lead to much wasted effort (years worth in my case)

i think your term for a trainee is perfect: a dynamic, ever-changing type of machine
which would stand to reason that our training must be dynamic too, and take into account the changes happening with our bodies as we (hopefully) progress up the ladder to our genetic potential.
as you rightly pointed out that does NOT mean we must make huge sweeping changes to our programs every few weeks, but that we merely remain conscious of these changes and take steps to keep progress on an even keel.
I'll go out on a limb and say the toughest aspect of training is recovery (which is the thing i thought Mentzer had really nailed down). Generally speaking, I dont think too many of us here have a problem generating enough stress in a session to cause adaptation but how to manipulate intensity and volume so that we can recover from it without losing the gains we've trained so hard for, that to me is the real "art" of training. When you get down to it, the biggest reason our training need ever change IS because strength overtakes recovery ability, right? otherwise we could just add weight to the bar systemtically 3 times a week until we got as big and strong as our genes will let us.

anyway, enough babbling from me
__________________
Quote:
You're not afraid of the dark are ya?
Reply With Quote