ON YOUNG TRAINEES

Since this is my blog, I get to be self-indulgent, and this is one of those times.  I’m at the ripe old age of 33, but I’m going to use this as an opportunity to get on my old man rage and talk about “back in my day.”  Why?  Because I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet, to the point that I now observe trainees that were the same age when I started training, and through these observations I’ve noted some bizarre trends that are completely hamstringing young trainees.  No matter how much information we make readily available, problems always exist with all levels of trainees, and more information just results in new problems.  In fact, I feel it’s to the point that new trainees need to quit learning so damn much and just do like we did before all this information was out there; experiment, fail, learn and grow.

This used to be where to get the "latest and greatest information"

One of the primary issues I observe with new trainees is a massive pre-occupation with the programming of their training.  They get it in their head that programming is the most critical aspect of programming, and the key to their success.  They believe that any sort of miscalculation will result in years of failure and regression, that they have a finite amount of “newbie gains” that can be exhausted on poor programming and result in stagnation and terminal “skinny fatness”, they believe the only way worth training is the most optimal way to train, etc etc.  What’s the issue with worrying about programming?  This preoccupation with programming typically comes at the expense of NOT being preoccupied with knowing HOW to move.

I’ve observed a trainee ask approximately 1000 questions on 5/3/1 for Beginners.  For those of you that are not “in the know”, 5/3/1 is marketed as the simplest training program for gaining raw strength and size.  The “for Beginners” variation of that would be the even SIMPLER version of the simplest training program for gaining raw strength and size.  It is spelled out set for set, rep for rep, exercise for exercise, you are told what day to train per week, what to do on that day, etc.  That ANY question can be asked about the program blows my mind, let alone the amount of questions I observe about the program on a daily basis.  One fateful day, among the myriad of questions this trainee asked, he asked about substituting deadlifts out of the program.  Through his trails and tribulations, he had deduced that the deadlift was simply “not for him”, and he needed a new movement for the program.  When prompted to post a form check, he uploaded a video of him deadlifting that looked like a cat dry-humping a barbell.  He literally could NOT hinge at the hips, all movement stemmed from his lower back, he couldn’t even bend down to reach the bar without significant rounding, etc.  Hours spent researching programming, not a second spent learning how to move.

"Hey guys, my deadlift has stalled at 135: should I run deadlift Smolov or Coan/Philippi?"

And this preoccupation with programming stems from a problem that IS as old as time when it comes to new trainees: emulating the more experienced trainees.  Before, the issue was that new trainees would just directly copy the training programs of experienced trainees and burn out because they lacked the work capacity, but now new trainees simply ape the mentality and mannerisms of experienced trainees, and with that comes another new bizarre trend in young trainees: pre-mature aging.  What do I mean here?  There are 15 year old trainees that, if you hear them talk, you’d swear they were 80 years old and worked in a coal mine their whole lives.  They talk about how they have bad knees and can only front squat, bad shoulders so they can only use a swiss bar and safety squat bar, lower back problems so they only belt squat and do romainian deadlifts, etc.  Jesus Christ, what did you do in 15 years of living to do this?  I’ve trained for 19 years and I’m not that broken.  I have a right shoulder with a torn labrum after 6 dislocations and a dozen subluxations, and I have the shoulder mobility to low-bar squat and press with a straight bar.  I blew out my knee so bad that they could not FIND my ACL in my MRI and I can still squat.  How did you get so old?

The internet, of course, makes this behavior self-validating, because these ancient teenagers get online and find others just like them and keep agreeing with each other.  They’ll all lament about how they can’t run certain programs because they can’t do the movements in them, they’ll help each other come up with replacement movements, they’ll find someone even YOUNGER than them and caution them with their years of wisdom to “not do like they did”, etc etc.  Why is all of this?  Because these trainees observe guys like Dave Tate, Ronnie Coleman, Steve Pulcinella, Ed Coan, etc, being broken and assume it’s some sort of badge of honor that comes with getting big and strong.  They’re in such a rush to be just like the big boys that they can’t WAIT to be crippled and lame.

This should do the trick

Once again, this stems from a lack of patience in what really matters for young trainees: learning how to actually MOVE.  So much of these aches and pains are due to poor execution of a movement pattern, NOT the inherent danger contained within these movements.  This gets to be my old man rant again, but a lack of patience among young trainees stems primarily FROM their youth, specifically as it relates to their perception of time.   A young trainee decides that they have to give up on a movement because they “tried figuring it out” and it just didn’t work.  When you ask them how long they spent trying to figure it out, they say 3 months.  It’s easy to scoff, but when you’ve only been training for 9 months, that seems like FOREVER.  And when you start out training not knowing how to move your body in general, 3 months spent “learning” a movement is really just 3 months spent screwing up a movement.  So what ends up happening?  These young trainees amass a HUGE list of “off-limits” movements for training at an incredibly young age and completely hamstring themselves from any growth, and their brokenness becomes self-perpetuating. They lock themselves into bizarre movement patterns and habits and lose out a significant degree of basic mobility (but don’t worry: that can be fixed with a mobility routine!  Another rant, for another time).

Wrapping up the old man rant, what we’re observing is the ramifications of a lack of athletics and genuine “play” among adolescents.  These basic movement patterns used to be reinforced by going outside and playing, climbing trees and playground equipment, running around, and playing a variety of sports.  Instead, trainees spent a significant degree of their youth sedentary, then reach an “oh crap” moment where they realize their youth is escaping and they look and perform like junk, and try to reverse it.  They’re sold a pack of nonsense that they’re running off “natural steroids” as a teenager, and that they MUST maximize this by weight training as hard as possible, run into all these issues because they don’t know how to move, and thus the above happens.  Instead of trying to find the most perfect program, instead of accumulating a list of fake injuries, instead of ruling out 90% of training movements, these trainees need to go become athletes.  They need to move through space, resist another human attempting to score points, move laterally, etc etc.  THIS is the beginner foundation, THESE are the “beginner gains”, and with this they’ll actually be set up for success.  They’ll also learn what a real injury looks and feels like, and the difference between pain and strain.  And, of course, they’ll hate this advice, because they want to train like all the big names in lifting…but hey, guess what THEY did?