2. Among the rest of the young gunners, you show the most discipline, dedication, and heart. You went
through the phase where you were pinning up pictures of bodybuilding icons on your wall, as
incentive to train hard and one day look like them. You go to the gym 5 to 6 days a week, and you
train as hard as you can. You’ve even got pretty decent technique, for someone who’s never had
coaching, and can’t afford a good trainer.
At the gym, there are many guys who sport the body that you want – they’ve been training for years
and boast mature, dense muscle. You’ve even taken some broscience tips from them and applied
them to your workouts….
But you’re still skinny.
See, it’s a whole other ball game when it comes to mass training for a young gunner with limited
experience. This is where I come in to save the day. With this, I’ll expose 6 common mistakes of
novice lifters (and by “novice”, I mean someone who hasn’t been properly training for at least 3
years). We all drop the ball – it makes the most sense to listen now, while it’s still early on
3. Mistake #1: Youre Not Eating Enough
When it comes to size, it’s simple – you need to be taking in more calories than you’re putting out.
I can’t possibly explain this more succinctly than I just did. That means you need to be eating
larger meals, and you need to be eating more frequently as a whole. The main reason why is so
that your muscles remain in anabolic (building) state the entire time. We want to promote this by
always making sure they’re getting their supply of protein every few hours like they’re supposed
to. As soon as they’re starved of this nutrient, the chances are they’ll be entering
a catabolic (breaking down) state, which is bad news for getting bigger. It’s important to remember
that your workouts are supposed to break muscles down, and the amount of food and nutrients
you eat is what’s responsible for building them back up. And speaking of workouts….
4. Mistake #2: You’re Lifting Too Heavy
There are a few reasons why this is something I consider important. First, because we have to
remember that the body’s responses to stimuli are very hormonal. Heavy weight lifting (I’m talking
under 5 reps) does a lot to exhaust the nervous system – especially if it’s done multiple times per
week. Soon enough your neurotransmitters will be giving you the finger, and your body will start
revolting against you. Having a nervous system that’s zapped is not good for strength and size gains,
since loading it properly is what helps stimulate production of key hormones like testosterone and
HGH.
Second, heavy lifting is a different animal. Sure, you may be strong enough to squat 300 lbs. But can
you make a 5 rep set look the same way your 10 rep sets look, from a technical perspective? Poor
form is the one of the main reasons beginners cheat themselves of a good workout. They overestimate
their abilities and then start beasting up weight that they shouldn’t be touching. Technique goes to hell,
and the lifter just wasted his time and effort. Getting under heavy weight requires a measurable
amount of experience to do it well and benefit from it.
5. Mistake #3: You’re Training Too Frequently
This is an important one, and I’m glad I get to spread the word on it. In his co-authored book called Fit, Dr.
Lon Kilgore, PhD mentions that for a trainee with less than 4 years of experience, there’s zero physiological
benefit from training 7 days per week. The only thing that it sets your body up for is lowered recovery, and
by failing to plan, you’re planning to fail. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Granted, many coaches
advocate training frequently, possibly arguing that as long as nutrition is on point, there should be no
problem. It’s a good idea to think of just who these coaches are catering to – the novice bodybuilder, or the
competing, mature bodybuilder who has been training for quite some time. Let’s take a look at the world of
sports. When I ran track at the high school level, our coaches understood that we were young; for some of
us it was our first year even trying out the sport. We didn’t train Monday to Friday after school – and even if
we did, that would still give us the weekends off. Our coaches knew that training as frequently as that
wouldn’t have any benefit in making us faster sprinters. In university, I ran track at the national level. Most
people on the team had either been recruited out of high school (like me), had been competing in club track
for years before, or were older and more mature than I was. Needless to say, a group of much more
elite, experienced athletes than our high school counterparts. My coaches still saw the importance of rest
days. More than one rest day per week, in fact.
6. Mistake #4: You’re Doing Too Much Isolation Training
Remember what I said about the nervous system above? It’s got an even bigger role in the exercise
choices you make. It’s pretty simple – if you’re a skinny guy trying to get bigger, choose exercises that are
HARD to do. What’s the difference between ten reps of biceps curls and ten reps of back squats? A lot of
effort. Standing barbell movements will make the CNS release those key hormones mentioned earlier. This
will help to promote growth from the entire body. Chances are, biceps curls will have some carryover into
size of the biceps alone, but not much. It’s important to use challenging, compound movements. Plus they
double as training “hub” exercises that will help you move better in general. The following are my favorite
movements that I always try to revolve programming around, regardless of the goals of the client.
•Barbell Deadlift
•Barbell Squat (and all of its variations)
•Barbell Standing Press
•Barbell Bentover Rows
•Barbell Power Clean
•Pull Ups
•Barbell Bench Press