Are You on a Training Program or Are You Just Working Out?

 

The Importance of Proper Programming

     

     The title of this essay comes from a well-known utterance of the real “trainer of champions” Vince Gironda.  I’ve quoted it more times than just about any other quote from a coach, bodybuilder, or strength athlete.  (Although I have oft-used Zatsiorsky’s quote “to train as often as possible while being as fresh as possible.”)  Gironda’s saying is an important quote that a lifter or bodybuilder needs to always keep in his mind, because too many trainees still just go to the gym and “work out” without any real plan.

     I mentioned this briefly in another recent post—and I’ve mentioned it at various times in different articles and essays throughout my career—but the main reason that people still just “work out” is because they don’t understand what actually constitutes a “good” training session.  Most people let the means (the workouts themselves) justify the ends (the results that are achieved from said workouts).  In other words, a workout is “good” if you sweated a lot, or it “hurt,” or made your muscles burn due to lactic acid build-up, or if you’re exhausted and lying in a heap when the workout is said and done.  But none of those things are necessarily indicators of whether the workout was actually good.  A workout should only be considered “good” if it helps you in achieving your goal(s).  In other words, the ends (your goals) should be what justifies the means (the actual workouts).  So right now, if your workout “program” consists of you just going to the gym and doing random whatever, let’s rectify that so that you can actually achieve your goals.

     First things first: you must have a clear goal for your workouts.  What are you trying to achieve in your resistance training?  Are the workouts you are currently doing helping you to achieve these goals?  Too many times, guys will say that they want to “get big” or “bulk up,” but then they go to the gym and try to hit a max single on several lifts.  Hitting an all-out max, for one thing, isn’t even a workout.  It’s just “testing your strength.”  Which is fine on occasion if you’re training for strength, but it’s an abysmal way to train for aesthetics.  And be honest with yourself here!  If you just want to look good naked, then there is nothing wrong at all with that.  That’s actually, I would say, the primary goal of almost everyone—man or woman, young or old—who trains in today’s day-and-age.  That and for “health”—which, we must admit, is a bit of an ambiguous and vague goal—but I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of people who start resistance training, and the dieting that goes along with it, simply want to look better.  So make sure that you’re honest, not just with others, but with yourself about what it is that you want, and then use the proper training program to help you reach that goal.

     Conversely, do you want to be really strong?  Do you want to enter a powerlifting contest?  Or just make your squat, bench press, and deadlift strong (whether you actually compete or not)?  Then don’t train like a bodybuilder.  Train like a strength athlete.  Which means those endless sets of machine work and curls to make your arms look better will do nothing to help you achieve your strength goals.

     If you’re an athlete in a specific sport, you need to ensure that what you’re doing in the gym is helping you in that sport, not hindering it.  Believe me, there are plenty of athletes that take up resistance training only to become worse at their chosen sport.  When I was a young man in the ‘80s with a love of martial arts, I can remember very distinctly when my sensei told me that I shouldn’t start lifting weights because it would make me slower.  This was, by the way, a quite common belief among fighters, and it’s still held by a number of boxing (and martial arts) trainers to this day.  The thing is it’s not wrong.  Because some forms of training will make you slower.  The typical American bodybuilding program will absolutely make you slower.  But other forms of training will make you stronger and faster.

     My point is that the correct program is everything in strength and/or hypertrophy training.

     By the way, there may come a time when you can actually throw everything that I’ve discussed here “out the window,” so to speak, and train however you want when you go to the gym.  But to reach that level doesn’t just take years of training, but often it takes decades!  And right now that’s probably not you.  Just saying.

     If you need help with programming your workouts, or some more tips for programming, or, perhaps, you just need a sample workout program, then check out some of the links I’ve included below.  At the very least, these are some great places to start.

Need more information on proper programming?

Volume, Frequency, and Intensity: Manipulating the 3 Training Variables

The 10 Most Common Mistakes Made by Lifters

Do you need a good program but have minimal time to train each week?  Try this one:

Maximum Mass, Minimum Training

Looking for a combination of strength and muscle size?

Set/Rep Variations for Strength and Power

Would you like to try an easy strength method for powerlifting?

21s: The Forgotten Method of Old-School Strength

And, last but certainly not least, if you just need something completely different because you’re burned out from all the usual training methods, try this:

The Best Muscle-Building Workouts You’ve (Probably) Never Tried