WHAT I WOULD TELL MY TEENAGE SELF: PART 1

I have, in my mind, a vision to expand this post significantly, but like my e-book, I need to get SOMETHING out now so that it can one day expand.  I always wanted to be big and strong, it’s one of my earliest memories, but I didn’t start seriously dedicating myself to that task until I was 14.  This was primarily because the only way I knew of (at the time) to get big and strong was by lifting weights, and I grew up in an era where we were told that lifting weights before you were 14 was “bad for you”.  So already that’s bunk, but after 22 years of training and observing others, I’ve learned a few lessons that I WISH I had known back then.  The big thing is, it’s easy to overwhelm a beginner with too much information and give them analaysis paralaysis, and, in fact, the fitness industry is pretty much BASED around making this all seem so complicated so that you are forced to seek out assistance.  So knowing that, if I were to be able to pass on some lessons to my teenage self, I’d want them to be simple, actionable, and effective.  From there, we can get into the weeds, but as far as setting out a foundation…

 

 

* LEARN HOW TO BRACE AND HINGE.   

We'll focus on hitching later

So many people talk about “good exercise form” and how critical that is for a beginner, and I feel like that misses the mark by quite a bit.  I wasted SO much time and energy trying to make my form on a bunch of different exercises LOOK right.  In turn, I spent a lot of time “resetting” my lifts because they’d get heavy, form would break down, and I’d lower the weight until I could make the form look right. 

 

What I NEEDED to be doing was learn PRINCIPLES rather than try to memorize the form of a million different lifts, and the two biggest principles I needed were bracing and hinging.  Bracing, the ability to tense my whole body, especially the core musculature, in order to make it resilient against a load, does significantly more to “protect” the body than any mastery of form can do.  A strongly braced body can withstand form deviation: a weakly braced body will crumple even with correct form.  Along with that, learning how to hinge at the hips vs bend at the back would have been THE most significant “injury preventing” technique I could learn that would have been applicable across a WIDE variety of movements.  So many back pain issues stem from trainees that are so concerned about making their deadlift LOOK right that they never stop to consider if they’re actually DOING it correctly.  You can perform a deadlift that LOOKS textbook perfect and is all lower back because there’s no hinge occurring at the hip.  This same hinge is essential on the squat, quick lifts, swings, etc etc.  Bench press and lateral raises can come with time, for now: brace and hinge.

 

The kettlebell swing would have been an AWESOME movement to learn both of these qualities.  Along with that, I’d have used a weight belt from day 1 in order to really be able to appreciate breathing into my belly and locking down.

 

* PULL WITH YOUR ELBOWS  

No: not like that

This one is unique to me, but that’s who I am writing to.  I did ALL the lat movements…and developed some big arms for my size.  And no lats.  As en vogue as it is right now to say that the mind-muscle connection doesn’t matter, I found that, if I just moved weight on the lat movements, my arms took over.  Much like hinging and bracing, this is about learning a basic principle of human movement and applying it universally rather than trying to memorize factsheets about 100 different movements.  Big lats are awesome, and the way to get them is to learn how to pull with the elbows instead of the hands.

 

Straps go a LONG way in helping with this.  Lock into the bar and remove the hands from the equation.

* MAKE MEALS: 

This would have gone a LONG way with teenage me...

As a teen, all I knew how to operate as a microwave.  That really crippled me when it came to sound nutritional decisions.  If I wasn’t eating leftovers (which thank GOD I had parents that would cook for me: that’s a blessing), it was either coming out of a box, frozen, or fast food.  In fact, my very first training log entry in 2004 had me eating a Nachos Bell Grande from Taco Bell for lunch and then dinner out at a CoCos.  Sure, I could get away with eating like that at that age…but imagine what I could have done if I was eating quality, nutritious food?  To say nothing of how much money I’d save.

 

I get it that the oven and stove can be scary, but it’s REALLY hard to screw up a slow cooker and a Foreman grill, and that’s exactly what I’d do.  I’d teach my teenage self how to make a slow cooker pot roast (cheap meat, lots of veggies, can’t go wrong there), slow cooker salsa chicken (breasts, thighs, drumsticks, whatever: the slow cooker runs less risk of undercooking) and some Foreman burgers and steaks.  I’d throw in some slow cooker hard boiled eggs too and be set.  Just those 4-5 things would set up ANY teenage lifter for a ton of success.  Later we can get more diverse, use that slow cooker to make chilis and stews, grill other meats, get a variety of veggies, etc, but just getting a baseline of basic protein rich foods would go SO far.

 

Also, let me just say that air fryers are practically cheating as far as meal prep goes.  I didn’t have one as a teen, but anyone that DOES have one has SUCH an advantage.

* STAY AWAY FROM PROTEIN POWDER: 

When are we going to tackle the REAL issues here?

This is my “never start smoking” that I’d pass on to my teenage self.  I stayed away from drugs, alcohol and smoking, but protein powder/supplements is a habit that I wish I had never started.  I was a 2 scoop a day user for a LONG time.  I’ve finally cut myself down to 1 scoop only on lifting days, but boy do I wish I could just go cold turkey.  In truth, I’m addicted to the ritual of drinking a shake post workout, plus, protein powder is SO delicious today compared to the pasty junk I had as a teenager.  And oh man, the protein bars back then were horrifying, and a lot of them gave me allergic reactions.  So WHY was I eating them? 

 

I bought WAY into the marketing that you NEEDED your quick absorbing protein immediately post workout or all your gains would go to waste.  Make sure to have your equal parts maltodextrin and dextrose too for maximal absorption.  Jesus, none of that matters, and I’d definitely tell my teenage self that I’d get FAR more jacked if I was taking that money I was blowing on supplements and spend it on FOOD instead.  And never starting the habit would mean never getting hooked.

 

 

This can really go on and on.  I’m going to do my best to keep it at a 2-parter, but feel free to leave comments about anything you’d like to see addressed otherwise.