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The company guarantees they'll all be relevant and proven effective.
Here's an article on maintaining passion in whatever it is we choose to do . . .
And here's a chart of Paul Anderson's squatting progression, from beginner to elder lifter. It's translated from Russian, I believe. No idea if it's all proven factual or not.
Sports often place more demands on our psyche than on our body. Anyone who has spent significant time lifting weights will agree that the physical exertion in the gym is nothing compared to the patience, perseverance, discipline, and willpower required.
From the emails I receive, it's clear that people most often give up on consistent, systematic training because their enthusiasm wanes.
Sometimes, training can be enjoyable.
But frankly, training is often the last thing on your list of favorite activities.
Training can become boring.
Don't underestimate simple boredom - it can sometimes be just as detrimental to your progress in the gym as training injuries, a poorly designed program, or improper exercise execution.
* It can be interesting to look at boredom in the same way we look at "training injuries." How did it happen and how do you rehab it. No different, not complicated; mental leverages and techniques similar to those used in the physical lifting end of it.
In some cases boredom clearly arises from what physiologists call "low frustration tolerance" . . . but when training becomes boring for someone who has previously toiled away in the gym for years, it would be wrong to attribute the problem to an infantile desire to get everything right away, and an inability to understand that effort precedes reward.
Serious athletes aren't particularly childish or capricious when it comes to putting in the necessary effort, and they often face it with the courage of stoics. However, they too sometimes suffer from boredom, because they are human. Despite all our discipline, we sometimes feel that lifting heavy weights becomes unbearable, progress stalls, and our psyche goes on strike, refusing to withstand further stress.
Another problem is stagnation. Unlike simple boredom, stagnation indicates a combination of physical and mental factors that halt progress in training and lead to staying in one spot, neither gaining or losing, simply standing in place.
Let's try to think about what measures can be taken to ensure that you don't lose the desire to lift. Let's also try not to turn this site into a fucking "self-help" bozo-farm for losers too anal to be lifting in the first place. How in hell am I gonna draw ad traffic from that lot and what in god's name are those three old broads shoving in their mouths up there.
Boredom is a purely psychological concept. Unless it's in animals, then it's zoological. I had a three-toed sloth for a pet so I know this. Boredom often overtakes those who become willing victims of their own habits. Let's say a person trains according to the same program, in the same way, at the same hours, week after week, month after . . . year!
Married to the method, till death do us part.
To some extent, consistency and discipline are necessary (a living death is not). Without these qualities progress is not possible; however, without variety we experience boredom. It can be a creeping affair, that frog in a pot of water brought slowly to boil. If you're a seeker of raw bulk and power we can change that metaphor to hippos being boiled in their tanks, if you like.
Basically, we all train quite similarly, that's just the nature of lifting and the limited number of effective exercises. There are variations available to us when needed, yet boredom creeps up, you start feeling it before you even KNOW what's happening. I trained Willy, my three-toed sloth housepet to wank himself, strictly to relieve his boredom, nothing sexual, no sir. It was financial in nature. I figured we could hit the road with a club act . . . Worlds Slowest Living Wanker . . . Willy! Three toes at sloth-speed. Turns out no one wanted to look at the act, much less book it. So much for "progressive comedy" I suppose.
Hey, who hasn't gotten bored with training? You lie! Let that man cast the first dessicated liver tablet. The mice who ate the liver tabs lasted twice as long before succumbing to death by stoning.
Hey, who hasn't gotten bored with training? It happens. What can we do?
We can minimize the bouts of boredom by reducing the likelihood of it happening. Here are some ideas:
1) Intentionally change your program from time to time. Avoid following the same program month after month if it's dried up and near-dead for you.
What matters more to you . . . the method or making headway?
2) Change your goals occasionally. Reset your foundation. Focus on your leg and back muscles periodically. This will lead to new growth throughout your body and help you regain enthusiasm for training.
Set the stage for future rewards, you won't regret it.
3) Learn as much as possible about how to train properly. Some people stick to the same program because they don't know what their choices are. Once we find a program that works, it can be hard to give it up, even if it's no longer producing results.
Go figure. We're human.
We get attached to approximately 10,000 things in the space of a day, damnit.
4) Try training with just dumbbells, or do more dumbbell lifting in your training. This is a simple and interesting way to quickly add more variety to your workouts. Owing to adapting to the greater stabilization involved, you may find your barbell lifts are more solid from the dumbbell training.
5) Be interested in things other than lifting. If you have allowed your life to become tiresome outside of the gym, why would it be any different inside the gym. Do something interesting to you and see if it doesn't turn things around.
Boredom is mental, stagnation is physical.
Ironically, those who have a strong desire to train often hit a plateau. It is almost always the result of over-working, and it's the most serious, dedicated athletes who over-work the most often. Their bodies stop progressing, and without progress going to the gym starts to look pointless, all ritual and no reward.
Stagnation is accompanied by physical weakness and fatigue. You'll find the weights you used to handle are now unbearable. It's not just the desire to train that's lacking, it's the energy. You watch with disappointment as not only your strength fades but your muscles shrink as well. Add to this the humiliation of being asked to screen-test for a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man and you get my drift here. Incidentally, if you ever teach a three-toed sloth housepet to jerk off make sure you know how to make it stop as well.
Most programs work at their peak for between six weeks and three months. Once you've reached what you believe to be maximum results with a given program, stop. Take a few days off, and then resume training with slightly reduced weights.
Or, change your program and restart the growth progress on a similar but different road. Vary the basic exercises from time to time, and periodically change your goals. Try higher reps for a while, then try low reps for a time, and so on.
Diet and rest are, duh, important.
Train with light weights periodically. It won't maximize your strength and no one is saying you should train only with light weights. Just allow yourself a little slack for a month or more to renew your passion for heavier weights.
Soften up then surge ahead.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
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