Hail to the Dinosaurs!
When it comes to strength training and
muscle building, you have to pay attention
to your brain, your ego and your body.
The three need to work together -- not work
against each other.
Let me explain what I mean.
Your ego is your sense of self. It's what
motivated you to start training in the first
place. Your ego decided, "I want you to be
strong, healthy, muscular and in great shape."
Your ego also said, "If HE can do it, so can
YOU!"
Then, after you started to get good results,
your ego said "I like this! Keep doing it!"
Your brain is your command central. It tells
your body what to do.
Your brain determines what exercises to do, how
much to lift, how heavy to go, how many sets and
reps to do, and how many days per week to train.
And hopefully, your brain studies GOOD sources of
training advice -- such as Dinosaur Training and
my other training books -- and works hard to put
together the best and most effective training
programs you can follow.
It's your brain that asks questions like, "Is this
working? Am I getting stronger? Do I feel strong
and energetic -- or weak and lethargic? Am I training
enough? Am I overtraining? Do I stick with what I've
been doing, or make some changes?"
Your body does all the heavy lifting -- and hopefully,
gives your brain some feedback about the process.
When your ego, your brain and your body work together,
good things happen.
But when they work against each other, bad things
happen.
I'll give you a simple example.
Guy goes to the gym to train. So far, so good.
Guy is scheduled to do 385 x 5 for his final set of
deadlifts.
Guy sees another lifter do 455 x 5, and he thinks, "I
gotta put more weight on the bar!"
And that's where the problem starts.
His ego is taking over the job of programming.
Instead of his brain telling him what to do (in this
case, 385 x 5), he lets his ego tell him what to do.
So he tries 405, and does 2 good reps, followed by three
lousy reps where he bounces the bar off the floor. The
last rep ends with an ugly, slow motion pull where he
loses his form and rounds his back and gets way out of
position, and almost kills himself to make the rep.
His back says "NO!" all the way (that's his body talking),
but his mind is asleep at the wheel and ignores the
message -- and the ego doesn't care, because the ego
thinks he did GREAT!
So the next time he goes to the gym, his ego tells him
to try 415 x 5 -- and you can guess what happens from
there.
Bounced reps, lousy form, rounded back, and then -- BAM!
A severe muscle pull.
He's off for six weeks, and when he comes back, he's using
315 x 3 and he ends up spending three months just getting
back to that 385 x 5.
So do this -- always be sure your brain, your ego and your
body work together -- with each of them doing its proper
job.
Together, the three can work miracles. Just give it some time
and some sensible training, and see what happens!
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. Sensible training is all about doing the right amount of
work -- not too much and not too little. Hard enough, but not
impossible. You can learn more about sensible, effective, real
world strength training in any of my books and courses:
1. Dinosaur Training
2. The Doug Hepburn Training Course
3. Black Iron: The John Davis Story (details John Davis'
actual training programs)
4. Strength, Muscle and Power
5. Gray Hair and Black Iron
6. Legacy of Iron (details the famous York training programs
and how the champs trained "back in the day")
7. Chalk and Sweat
You can find them right here at Dinosaur Headquarters:
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
