Well, with the past now in our rearview mirrors this would be a great time to sit back and reflect on a year’s worth of training, eating, supplementation, trial and error, misguided practises, epiphanies, highs and lows, gains and losses and be thankful that we’re all still here happy and healthy ready to tackle the new year!
I’m always extremely optimistic with the turning of each calendar year, and this one is no different. Having said that, while many people may choose to take on the mindset of what happened in the past should stay in the past, I’m taking a different approach and will be revisiting all the little things I’ve learned over the past year so that 2016 can be void of those same mistakes and instead prosperous with the new knowledge I’ve gained.
The adage of “You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” is jump-starting my year, so in no particular order here are some of the highlighted lessons I’ve learned upon reflection of my own practices and what I’ve witnessed over the course of an otherwise awesome year.
Creativity Breeds Progress
There was a time in my lifting career that had me steadfast in the exercises I would utilize for each training session. From doing my own research and from watching other more experienced lifters, I put together a list of exercises I deemed to be the most effective for building each muscle group. I stuck with those same exercises for a long time even when my progress was slowing down. Well, with getting older and with more aches and pains and a new zest for adding quality gains this year, I started to veer away from some of my standard and most commonly used exercises and began experimenting with exercises I wouldn’t have been caught dead doing in my earlier years and guess what? That’s right, new gains!
Take for example a step up for quad development, never in a million years would I have done this exercise thinking it had no place in a bodybuilding program, but when you can’t squat anymore because of a bad back, you start looking for alternatives, and this one did the trick for me. Also, training in a less than fully equipped gym can have its downsides but to me it just made me more creative, and you should see some of the exercises I’ve come up with by manipulating what machines I do have at my disposal.
Flexible Dieting Can Work
Being too busy to stick with a proper diet has never been an excuse I’ve ever accepted from myself or others that I work with. I just simply cannot justify any reason for a lackluster approach to nutrition if being a bodybuilder is your goal. Now, having said that, some meals are more difficult than others to consume, and a lot of preparation is needed to stay on course; that’s where the whole idea of flexible dieting found its place into my life.
You’ve all seen articles describing the perfect bodybuilding meals, the right food choices and the times in which you should be consuming said meals and that’s all fine and dandy if bodybuilding is the only thing in life you have going on and it’s your job. Unfortunately for 99% of us that is just simply not the case. Enter flexible meal options. Instead of sticking with the same meals day in and day out, eating them at the same times day in and day out, be less concerned with making sure you eat 6 chicken breasts a day and more concerned with consuming the protein intake you require for continued growth, whatever form that comes in.
Taking this approach will help you stick with a clean diet for much longer because of the variety of your food choices. You’ll still get the gains you are in search of. It may save you some money and add to your overall quality of macro and micronutrient intake. And it will relieve a ton of stress knowing that your meal prep doesn’t have to be long and arduous each and every week because some of your new food choices require very little prep at all. Trust me on this one, unless you are getting ready for a show, let a little variety find its way into your life.
There is Still so Much to Learn
I’ve been at this training thing for over twenty years now with bodybuilding being at the forefront of that for at least the last fifteen years now.
I’ve learned a lot. I’ve discovered a lot on my own through trial and error, have read more than I can even begin to describe and have met tremendous people who have shared their knowledge with me. I have worked with these people to develop new ideas and have had to troubleshoot for my students and other people I work with. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t!
Over this past year, I’ve learned so many new approaches to training, dieting and supplementing that, to be honest with you, it feels like it’s hard to keep up some days. Anytime I do feel overwhelmed or perplexed with something I’m trying to figure out I always know I can go to this blog page on the AST Sports Science website and have all of my questions answered just by doing a simple search of the articles found there. And if that’s not enough for you, you can also sign up to receive a weekly High-Performance Muscle email that highlights the latest and greatest articles that have been posted on the site, so you never miss out on reading all of this awesome information.
Now, I could go on and on about the little things I’ve learned over the past year like taking gym selfies has become more important than high-intensity workouts. Getting likes because you’ve posted a picture of you going beast mode supersedes just putting in the hard work because that’s what you’ve always done anyways but that wouldn’t help move our sport in a positive direction. So instead, when you do your own reflection, look at what REALLY helped you progress this year and disregard the rest.
With every new year comes new possibilities and what you do with those possibilities will ultimately decide the success of your year. I’m ready for great things, and I hope you are too! All the best in 2016 and I’ll see you in the gym!
