Have you trained for several years using the same weights and not seeing any results?

 

Are you more concerned about your bicep curls than your squats?

 

Is this you?

 

If yes on any of the questions, you have been diagnosed with fuckarounditis.

What you need to do is:

  • Keep track of progress
  • Stick with the plan
  • Plan for progress
  • Stick to the basics
  • Focuses too much on strength
  • Make sure you eat good

 

Ok lets go over them one by one.

 

Keep track of progress If you go into the gym without tracking your workouts you are doing it wrong. Bring a notebook or your phone if you prefer. Log everything. Set up a page for your PR's. You have to track your progress. This will help you to overload.

 

If you have a legs workout and you know that in your last leg workout you did 130kg x 8. This time you want to do 130 kg x 9 or 132.5 x 8. But to make that progress you have to have it written down so that you know what you did the last time! It's the only way you can overload, you can progress in many variables, by doing more reps, doing more sets, resting shorter or adding more weights, but you have to do any of them, and you should progress in every workout.

 

Also log your rep PB's, all of them. From 1RM up to 20RM. It creates great challenges where you can aim to beat your previous PB's. I have all of this logged and watch it almost every workout.

 

 

Stick with the plan Don't go into the gym and do different exercises all the time. Don't go into the gym and do different rep-ranges all the time.

 

You need to follow a routine to be able to do the progress we talked about earlier. It can be your own routine or someone else's, but you have to be consistent and do the same stuff from week to week. Change up after some months, but don't change program or workout or even reps every time you step into to the gym, you'll not get used to anything and you won't be able to overload and progress if you do so.

 

 

Plan for progress Make a plan for your progress. Set goals and follow up on them. If you cannot perform so that you meet your goals, do something different, perhaps do more volume or perhaps do less volume.
Maybe you need to rest more and realize that you are having a lot of stress from dieting or work and cannot handle the same volume as usual.

 

 

Stick to the basics Do deadlifts, squats, bench press, rows and pullups. These exercises build muscle very effectively and also builds your mind. You have to push yourself to perform a deadlift and you'll learn to train hard. Smaller exercises and machine exercises don't work the same amount of muscle and are not as time effective. Keep it simple and stick with the compounds!

 

 

Focuses too much on strength Don't get caught up with only training for strength. To get bigger you need volume. Don't fatigue yourself by maxing all the time and train with too low reps. Do reps between the 8-12 rep range, keep volume high and grow. Mandatory read: My volume post on TRP, "How to train for hypertrophy" and make sure to read the links.

 

 

I've summed up the most important from Martin Berkhan (Leangains) article Fuckarounditis Martin is really competent so read his article and other stuff. However I will warn you, he focuses too much on strength and have to little focus on frequency and volume, even though I've heard he is upping that in his new program on patreon. Don't forget to checkout my volume post on TRP, "How to train for hypertrophy".

 

 

Make sure you eat good The best that you can do is to calculate calories. If you don't keep track of it, how do you know where you are going? Well you could guess and weight yourself, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

If you want to grow, eat enough surplus so that you gain 1-2lbs per week.

 

If you want to get leaner, decide if you need to cut for a longer period of time or if you can do a minicut. If you need to do a longer deff, don't rush it too much, follow these guidelines for different body fat percentages: 18-19% body fat: -1.7 lb/week
15-17% body fat: -1.5 lb/week
12-14%: -1.3 lb/week
9-11%: -1 lb/week
<8%: 0.7 lb/week

 

If you want to do a minicut, that is deffing hard for 3-4 weeks, then you can aim at loosing 1% of bodyweight per week. But don't try to do this for a longer period of time. While deffing you want to keep your volume medium high, you are already katabolic due to the caloric deficit so you need a reasonable volume to balance it up, however don't go too high since you won't be able to recover from it.

 

Also don't forget to stick at maintenance sometimes. After a long bulk or deff you want to get some weeks of maintenance, 4-6 weeks is fine, to let the body adapt to your new weight before starting a cut or bulk.

 

About protein, eat a lot of it, 1 g protein/lb body weight is good. If you want to go higher do so, but it isn't necessary. If you are cutting you could argue for getting more protein which have shown useful in studies. If you have trouble to get enough protein, take some protein shakes. But you don't have to, just eat protein rich sources such as meat, chicken, fish, lenses, beans, egg, tuna etc.

 

 

Train hard, do your deadlifts and squats, if you are intermediate or advance make sure to hit the volume and you'll grow!