One of my biggest pet peeves in bodybuilding is advanced bodybuilders who get amnesia and totally forget how they actually put on great amounts of muscle in their beginning years in the first place. Many, many years later after they have built a great deal of muscle mass and can stay leaner due to the metabolic rate assets of all that muscle mass they will shout to anyone within 1000 feet about the “comfortable” BS training they are doing now (that is greatly unlike the actual training they did that produced that muscle mass!). Here is a question i want you to think about: When is the last time you heard any bodybuilder say or think that the training they are doing at this moment right now is not working? NEVER! So many people fool themselves into thinking what they are doing now is working when the reality is you see so many bodybuilders who look EXACTLY and i mean EXACTLY what they looked like 5 years ago. Maintenance is not gaining! Of course you look better NOW…you put years of hard work in building all that muscle mass and now you walk around leaner and tell everyone and anyone that the way you are lifting now (which again is at best comfortable maintenance) is the way to do it. The scale and the mirror does not lie. A majority of intermediate/advanced people look exactly the same they did 5 years ago.
I need you to open your mind for a second and think about some things that are so important in what I am going to say in the following paragraphs. I am a pubmed junky. I love to read pubmed about drugs, supplements, health, the human body etc. What irritates me to no end is when people will try to pubmed-brainwash groups of people to death to drive home a preconceived notion they have in their mind. I proved this to a great many people on MD many years back by showing a study showing “fasted cardio being the best method to losing bodyfat”…in the very next post i put up a study showing “why fasted cardio did not matter and doing cardio any time during the day was the best”….now just think if you were shown just the first study…YOU WOULD BELIEVE IT. Just think if you were shown just the second study. YOU WOULD BELIEVE IT. People can pubmed-brainwash the heck out of groups of people to steer them in a certain direction….a direction they want you to go in. Ive seen it done too many times over the years that it has become beyond annoying.
So this is my problem with pubmed studies on lifting/bodybuilding and what have you. EXAMPLE: “We took a group of 24 male weightlifters and had them perform 3 sets of leg extensions at 60% 1RM for 12 reps…..etc etc etc”….STOP RIGHT THERE. Ok i want to ask you the reader something. If someone came up to you and said “Every person that goes to Stanford will become a great doctor” or “Every person that goes to Columbia will be a great lawyer”…How exactly do you measure “hard work” or fortitude”?…You are telling me every single person in that classroom in every subject at that college every single year works extremely hard? I call BS. So when you have a pubmed study using weightlifters…how exactly do you measure individual genetics? Because I guarantee you, if you conduct the study in Salt Lake City Utah its going to be far different than Atlanta Georgia. How do you measure someones intensity? How do you measure hard work and a ‘never say die fortitude’ in weightlifters? YOU CANT! So i generally take lifting studies somewhat with a grain of salt to be honest. Drugs/supplements and other pubmed studies? The human body and how it reacts to drugs, supplements etc is somewhat universal in nature (disregarding genetics)…but lifting studies? Very hard unless you want to do lifting studies using multiple sets of identical twins.
But I will tell you something that you can put in your craw and lock it up as a bonafide fact. Power in numbers blows virtually any study out of the water. Power in numbers does not lie. IF 2987 OUT OF 3000 PEOPLE SAY SOMETHING WORKS, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT 4 GUYS IN LAB COATS SAY, power in numbers is correct. We had science come forward many decades ago with the AMA with its official statement on steroids saying “they did not work and it was a placebo effect”….UHHH..sorry, power in numbers proved this to be absolutely false. We had pubmed studies on HMB, Ribose, DAA and other supplements lauding them as the greatest thing since sliced bread. What proved out? Power in numbers of 1000’s upon 1000’s of people came forward and said “no not so great”…and who was right? Power in numbers was. Every highly touted drug (pgf2, MGF FGF that came down the pipeline in bodybuilding) ended up thrown to the wayside no matter what the data and literature said benefits wise…..because THEY DIDNT WORK for the masses,
So lets go thru the greatest human studies ever put out on this planet shall we? All you have to do is observe and look at massive groups of people to show you the way. And these studies don’t have 12-24 participants…they have MILLIONS of participants in them. The stats don’t lie. The data is there. Just open your eyes and look at it.
So lets take that journey and look at monumental amounts of people shall we? Lets do our best to take genetics out of the picture because people with great genetics can grown no matter what they do, even with bad deductive reasoning they grow. They can curl milk jugs filled with sand while wading in a pool and grow biceps. Thousands of you reading this right now, trained 100X harder, ate 100X better, supplemented, enhanced and did everything better than Paul Dillet to be the best bodybuilder you could possibly be yet you still got dwarfed by Paul Dillet didnt you? Because genetics cannot be beaten. So with us removing genetics to the best of our ability lets look at millions of people and make some determinations.
A) Newbie lifters: This is you, me, anyone and everyone during their first 2-3 years of lifting. Everyone makes gains. No matter what you do even if its horribly incorrect during this time period you make gains to some degree because of the new stimulus presented to the human body. People gain sometimes 20-50lbs during these years. They can gain a lot of muscle correctly and even a little muscle incorrectly (hopefully they have some mentors/guidance and do it correctly). Across the board newbies gain muscle mass. NOTE TO EVERYONE: What else is highly noticeable at this time? Training weights go flying upwards during this time….. 20lb dumbells become 30, 40, 50 LB dumbbells. 135 lLB squats become 155, 185, 205, 225 LB squats for reps. All training weights go up pretty dramatically during these 2-3 newbie years at the very same exact time period that every newbie puts on a great deal of their original muscle mass. A coincidence? NO ITS NOT A COINCIDENCE! Take note of that…. lets move on…
B) Group 2 This is the post 3 year mark where newbies are no longer newbies. Past 3 years is the point where things slow down dramatically. This group right here is the majority of gym goers across the globe comprising millions if not 100’s of millions of members of this group. A lot of you guys reading this right now are part of this group. And what is the telltale sign of this group? They never change. This group right here is the greatest human study ever done on bodybuilding on this very planet and it shows exactly what not to do…and yet so many of you guys don’t observe, notice or learn from it. Go to your gym tomorrow, heck go to other gyms, you will see millions upon millions of members of these gyms that are 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 years of age that look the same as last year, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago etc etc etc. You will say “hi” to them tomorrow as you go by and five years from now they will look the exact same when you say “hi”. What is their telltale calling card? These millions of “never change ever” members DO NOT LIFT HARD. The go in and do comfortable training and train at about 70% intensity for years and years like clockwork. So when i hear the modern day cry of “you dont need to lift that hard to get bigger”, and “you can leave multiple reps in the tank, no problem and you will grow”…CHECK THE FREAKING SCOREBOARD!!! The biggest study ever done with the ultimate proof is in every gym in America and around the globe, proving this to be untrue! This membership in group 2 is so large in number it should be irrefutable proof that “not lifting that hard” does not work! Please I am asking you….go to your gym tomorrow and just watch….look at the same guys there you have seen for 5 years looking the EXACT same. They do not train very hard do they? If you don’t have to train very hard to gain muscle mass this group #2 would be comprised of a majority of individuals with a lot of muscle mass first of all and secondly the groups of people pushing this “you dont have to train hard to gain muscle mass” mantra should not and would not have to use anabolic drugs to overcome the limitations to what that kind of lackadaisical training produces. I am not calling out anyone specifically….Im calling out YOU the modern day group of bodybuilders……how the hell did we get to this point where we try to make everything easier when the hardest training bodybuilders in every gymout there banging away at heavy slag iron have been the ones changing for decades. The sad reality is the drugs in the sport which allow non-intense, people to make gains…..has skewered everyone’s thinking. A lot of people need to go back to natural training to remember how the heck you actually trained yourself to get larger when you were clean. A lot of answers become real clear when there isn’t a bottle of testosterone helping things along the way……try that “ahhhh no big deal I don’t have to lift that hard today” as a natural guy trying to improve the size of your quads. Of course its easy to do it when you load up a turkey baster to exceed all plateaus. That wasn’t done far and wide in the old days when guys got after it training wise and the drug dosages were 1/4 to 1/2 of what is used now. Take out the genetic marvels and people using drugs, do you see anyone training at 70% getting huge? No, no you don’t. So by my calculations up to 95% of this group 2 right here is not changing, will not change, and will look the exact same in 5 years. The other 5%? That other 5% are the actual guys over in the corner grinding out heavier and heavier T-bar rows, doing progressively heavier squats, leg presses, skull crushers, CG presses, machine shoulder presses, curls, for reps like their life depended on it. Those guys push thru this stagnant point in a lifters career with progressively heavier training for reps. <—-these guys right here know their shit and they figured out how to train to keep progressing.
C) Group 3: This is the journey into being enhanced lifter group….this is a really large group of individuals who come from a myriad of different backgrounds and knowledge. EVERY SINGLE BODYBUILDER WHO USES BODYBUILDING DRUGS GAINS. FACT! This group is just like the newbie lifters in that they can gain no matter what even when they are idiots sometimes. Again every bodybuilder that uses bodybuilding drugs for those first 2-3 years will make gains. A lot of this group of people gain 15-35lbs of muscle. They could lift buckets of sand while riding a unicycle and they would gain because of the incredible advantage that the bodybuilding drugs give them. The majority of these guys think they know their stuff (even when they don’t) because the drugs give them a false sense of “I know what I am doing” but its the milligrams that are dictating the advance of muscle mass and not their intellect. NOTE TO EVERYONE: What else is highly noticeable at this time? Training weights go flying upwards. 60lb dumbells become 80, 90, 100, 110, 120lb dumbells during this time. 245lb squats become 275, 315, 365, 405lb squats for reps. All training weights go up pretty dramatically during these enhanced 2-3 years at the very exact same time that this enhanced person puts on that 15-35lbs of muscle mass. A coincidence? NO ITS NOT A COINCIDENCE! Take note of that! Do not overlook it.
D) Group 4: This is the post 2-3 year enhanced group period. This is the most dangerous group in bodybuilding. This group comprises huge groups of individuals who give false information and false hope but lets get to that point in a second. This is a massive group of enhanced bodybuilders. A majority of them are only as big as the drugs allow them to be. What is so dangerous about these individuals is they will give out information to anyone in a 50 mile radius based on the look they have (that the drugs impart to them) but they dont know their stuff at all. They are only as good as the drugs let them to be. But bodybuilders smaller than them listen to them intently because they don’t know better and heck these guys look like they must know what they are talking about right? The majority of these guys are trapped. If they get off the drugs they disintegrate….because they never learned how to train to gain muscle or keep muscle…they only have muscle mass due to the drugs and the milligrams used. So most of these guys never get off and thats ok but I will give you one telltale sign of these guys and how you can tell they don’t know their ass from their elbow training wise. Like group 2 after that 2-3 year phase they never get bigger. EVER! They reach that 15-35lbs of muscle mass gained from drugs and stay there. For the rest of their lifting career they will be the same size…unless they abuse the hell out of themselves with drugs to go past that setpoint but thats another story alltogether that usually ends up with them dying in their 40’s. Again these are the guys who are the most dangerous people to listen to in bodybuilding because they give advice on various topics but 90% of what makes them up as a bodybuilder is the drugs and the milligrams they dare to use.
E) Group 5: These guys know their shit! Oh my god do these guys know their stuff! These are the individuals who learned how to train progressively to gain muscle mass in the beginning years and carried it all this time right through the enhanced post D group and they keep gaining. This group makes up pro level bodybuilders, people with good genetics, people with intermediate genetics and a whole bunch of people in between. The telltale sign of these guys is 3 years after they became enhanced they pull every trick out of their training bag and train viciously heavy for reps AND THEY KEEP GAINING past the Group 4 stage while the majority of the people in group 4 stop. I cannot give these guys enough superlatives and compliments…these guys and the 5% in group 2 are the true superstars of the sport who figured out how to train to get larger continuously. Who are these people? An example that you would know is look at pro bodybuilders who get their pro card. Most of them never get much bigger than that do they? Now look at the ones that do get larger after they get their pro card….the Shawn Clarida’s, and others like him…look at the progressively heavier and heavier weights they use to get larger and larger in the years after they got their pro cards. Its not coincidence. Any guys in your gym who are past that 2-3 year enhanced stage and continued to get larger….I guarantee they are grinding it out. If anyone here thinks im talking about singles or triples for reps your nuts. I am talking progressively heavier weights used for 8 to 30 reps (whatever you determine is your safe rep range you want to train in). TrainedbyJP, Jordan Peters….look at him. Guy went to pro size and then went to freak pro size….I had a front seat view to that trip…progressive weights used the whole time. So i give my ultimate respect to this group right here and the 5% group in group #2…they figured it out. RESPECT!
So look above…just observe these examples of massive groups of people. What stands out? Seems like the guys who gain tremendous amount of strength for reps over time (newbies and enhanced) also put on a great deal of muscle mas and only the groups of guys who sanely grasp that concept continue on to get larger and larger over time once the newbie and newly enhanced periods are over. Its sad to see so many people confused by both newbie gains and worst of all the number of 2-3 year enhanced bodybuilders who get so brainwashed with what drugs give them as far as a look, that they think they know what they are doing training wise. People who train progressively…THAT SUIT OF ARMOR IS THEIRS. It does not go away over time it becomes dense viable tissue that does not get lost in dieting processes and a large part of that suit of armor stays with progressive training bodybuilders when they go down to TRT. The bonafide sign of a someone who is lost training wise is someone who is large when on the drugs and shrinks to nothing when they get on TRT….it really is an embarrassment that the only thing that keeps you “a bodybuilder” is polypharmacy and milligrams…..
Want to know when someone really knows their stuff? When they take natural bodybuilders and enhanced bodybuilders who have been lifting hard for 6-8 years who are tapped out and they get them up to a whole new level in size. Then you know your stuff! I dont know why so many people in bodybuilding cannot step outside of their own personal drug using box and think “hmmm what would natural me do?”…..Because the correct answer training wise to truly get “natural you” bigger is the exact same answer to use when you are enhanced….its a real eye opening experience when you don’t have “the good old PED help” in your back pocket. A lot of you would look at things much much differently.
I hope i gave you some thoughts to think about up above……sometimes sitting back and observing large groups of people can shine some light on the correct path to take
