Hail to the Dinosaurs!
I know this guy who is just frantic
to build strength and muscle, and he's
been hounding me endlessly to give him
a personalized training program "with
all the secrets."
"Read my books, I said.
"I've read them," he said. "All of them.
I do everything you say to do. But I need
to know THE SECRET STUFF -- the stuff you
don't put into your books."
"I don't hold anything back," I told him.
"It's all in the books. Everything you need
to know."
But he didn't believe it. He kept on pestering
me. He wanted "the secrets."
Finally, I got tired of listening to
him
"When's your next workout?" I asked him.
"Tomorrow."
"What are you doing?"
"Deadlifts, partial deadlifts from the knees,
and presses."
"Okay, I'll stop over and watch you train."
"Sweet!"
So the next day, I stopped by and watched him
hit the iron out in his garage gym.
He started by grabbing his bar and loading
it up to 350 pounds.
"Aren't you going to do any warm-up sets?" I
asked him.
"Naw, they take too long, and I don't have
time," he said. "Besides, I read this thing
on the internet about how warm-ups are
unnecessary. It works better to just load
the bar and lift. That puts more stress on
your body and triggers more muscle growth."
"Who said that?"
"Some guy. I forget his name, but he's a coach
somewhere. He really knows his stuff."
"What does he lift?"
"I dunno. But he really knows his stuff."
He walked over to the back of the gym, and
pulled out an old television. He turned it
on to a cable tv news show. The talking heads
were arguing about Barack Obama and whether he
should be impeached. With all the yelling and
screaming and finger-wagging, I thought they
were going to break out the knives, clubs and
broken bottles.
"Good show," he said. "I never miss it. You
gotta be informed!"
I nodded.
"Informed is good," I said.
He chalked up and walked over to the bar.
Then his cell phone rang. He stopped, reached
into his pocket, and pulled it out.
"Whassup?" he asked.
He stayed on the call for something like 5
minutes, and then spent another five minutes on
a call he placed to someone else. Then he texted
and twitted for a few minutes.
"Gotta keep up with the the peeps," he said.
I nodded.
"Peeps are important," I said.
Finally, he went back to the bar. By this time,
we'd been in the garage for something like 20
minutes, and he hadn't done a single rep.
He stood over the bar for several seconds. he
actually looked fairly serious, and I thought he
was actually going to lift it.
Suddenly he turned and walked back to the chalk
box.
"Need more chalk," he said.
"I nodded.
"Chalk is good."
"So, what should I do?" he asked. "5 x 5 or a death
set?"
"What do you normally do?"
"Whatever I feel like doing. I train instinctively.
That works better."
"Who said that? The same guy?"
He shook his head.
"Naw, that was another guy. But he knows his stuff,
too!"
He stroked his chin as he thought it over.
"Maybe I should do heavy singles," he said. "I heard
those were good."
I nodded.
"Yeah," I said. "I heard that, too."
STOP!
Tomorrow, I'll tell you the rest of what
happened.
But for now, consider this. That mysterious
SECRET of strength training success is floating
all around every word of the story. What is it?
Send your answers to me by email -- I'll post
the best ones.
As always, thanks for reading, and have a great
day. If you train today, make it a good one!
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. My books, courses, DVD's, newsletters, Iron
Game novels, t-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies are
available at Dino Headquarters:
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
