Are You Spinning Your Wheels?

[Darkhorse]

I just posted in my journal about this, and I thought it was worthy of a repost in the training forum.

Look back a year ago and see where you were strength/mass wise from then till now. How much of a difference is there? This is a great method to figure out if what you're currently doing is beneficial or not. If you're relatively the same as a year ago, that should tell you something in your training OR diet needs to change, and you were basically just "spinning your wheels".

If you're training for strength, how much stronger are you from a year ago? Training for mass.. How much bigger are you?

Originally Posted by 0311

Here's a portion of my post in my journal:

So in one year I added 185 lbs to my OLY squats, and in wide parallel squats I think I started with 365, now (24 weeks later) I hit 425 and still had room for more. 100% natural as well....

[ChinPieceDave667]

This is weird for me because it's a little of both. Thinking about what my goals where a year ago, I'd say I'm spinning my wheels because a year ago I wanted to be huge. But my goals have changed and I just want to be stronger and an endurance machine, maybe a little bit bigger. Now, from the point I've changed my goals, about 6 months ago, I've made big improvements in my endurance. I see it in my Thai boxing classes when it comes to the 3 minute kicking drills. In the beginning I couldn't make it past 1 minute, now I'm just waiting for everyone else to finish so I can start kicking with my other leg. My strength improvements are good but at times my wheels are definitely spinning. Hopefully my next workout plan will fix this.

[_Wolf_]

last year when i joined this site i was 5'7 @ 165 lbs w/ a max squat of 200 lbs and a max deadlift of 225. right now, i am 182 lbs w/ max squat of 310 and deadlift of 315x3. so yeah, some improvement.

[BigMal]

I'd say big improvement over last year. Lost 26+ lbs. Saw a good change in body composition. Got back into lifting consistently again, including squats which I haven't done since high school, ~10yrs ago.

Maybe most importantly, learning the importance of good eating habits as through school, I was a 2 meal a day kind of guy, with plenty of drinks, and other stuff Traveling for work, I also picked up some very bad habits. Fast food always, plenty of soda & snacks, couch potato, etc...

I'm hoping to keep moving in a positive direction for years to come, puting on some good size, strength gains, and get a 6pk for the 1st time in my life.

[Frontline]

Thanks to DFHT 5x5 I can honestly say that my core lifts in bench/deads/squats all greatly improved. Squats are a huge improvement over last year which I attribute alot to making the switch to olympic squats and performing them more frequently. Squatting three times a week on DFHT....priceless.

Like Eric I switched my focus recently and decided I want to lean out and show off my base a little more. Some of the strength gains have disappeared but the majority of that strength in the squats has stayed with me.

[verbatimreturned]

I haven't be able to focus 100% of the last couple of weeks, but over the summer/most of last year (school year) when I was focused I made great gains in every department, plus when I ran the cut diet over the summer i made some great BF% reductions (Not exactly sure on numbers, but the mirror tells me I did a good job)

[hrdgain81]

I'm spinning and spinning and spinning. But to me its understandable, life has gotten in the way. sometimes you have to make sacrafices when it comes to the gym, to get were you want to go in life. So even though I havent seriously lifted in a while, I take solice in the fact I doubled my income in the last 3 months.

Come Jan. I'll finally be settled, and I'll have two roomates that are dead serious about both resistance training, and martial arts. I cant wait for the new year.

[Kane]

Everyone's seen my progress with the recent pics I put up. I'd say I made a monster improvement. The only thing I didn't meet was my weight goal, I wanted to hit the 200lb mark when I hop on the scale. But lately I'm leaning more toward the "who gives a fuck what the scale says when you're slinging that much iron" attitude .

All my lifts have gone way up, A2G went from 135x5->245x5, bench 185x3->275x1 (new PR the other day ), Deads 265x5-305x3

Definitely not spinning my wheels!

[Darkhorse]

I'm impressed that not one person has been spinning!

Keep it up!

[EricT]

I'm rolling along nicely. My stength has increased dramatically as of late and it seems to be continuing. Progress in the last year has been phenomenal in that regard. Not gaining any weight right now but I look bigger and more solid than ever and gained a lot of weight in general since I joined. The wheels definitely aren't spinning but I may be nothing but bondo and primer by the time I'm done!