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EricT · 07-30-2008, 01:01 PM

This reminds me of a recent thread/argument I had. I'll see if I can find it.

Here's the thing, everybody overgeneralizes. I think these abitrary big numbers are ridiculous as well. This is one of the reasons I've disagreed with the notion, time and time again, with directing every newbie to the stickies to answer their questions.

When it comes down to it, though, everybody, or at least the person who trains them, should have a very concrete and specific reason for every exercise they do. Should be able to explain pretty well why it's done in a specific programming environment for a specific trainee. It doesn't matter whether it CAN be done, or whether it's convenient or not, only that if you can't expain it, then you are just lobbing stones.

It's a funny thing that overgeneralizing from various statements taken out of context tends to lead to extremes. So you get the 4, 5, and 6, thing or you get the other end where beginning trainees are are doing training "weak points". LOL, I could probably say one definition of a novice is they don't yet have weakpoints in the way most people think of weak points. Do they have baggage? Yes. But if you give me a guy attempting deads for the first time who discovers he's "weak" at lockout, then there's a guy who has taken more than nececessary. But there are other reasons to include certain things for sure.

There is a REASON people say pick some big primary movements when your first start and concentrate on improving those for a while. Very good reasons. But some big preconcieved numbers is putting the cart before the horse.

I don't think that has to be the same movements for everyone and I believe that the powerlifting world as positive as it is has sort of introduced some misleading notions about strength and size as opposed to having a big squat, dead, and bench at whatever cost (which is what PL'ing is really).

However, I don't think that anyone is really saying that you don't do any specific tricep work until you've reached a certain number! What they mean is that if you concentrate on bringing up strength one big compound movements in a more general sense for a while then size as a goal will be easier to come by later.

Andrew, a lot of times you are dealing with a person, as I think may be true in this case, who pays attention to "size" in terms of progress more than "strength". We can't go assuming that "strength" is a foregone conclusion (at least not yet). So a lot of times the guys here are just saying to newbies "bring up your compounds" and not to worry about a bunch of isolation stuff. They are not saying never do anything else until you reach some imaginary line in the sand. As Dave was saying.

Here you have a guy who is doing squats and deads twice a week and adding weight each workout. Now it's not a lot of info to go on but judging by what we have he's really not at a place where any of us can say he needs this or that without a lot more to go on. Although I think there are certain things that everyone should be doing...