When I was 18 I wanted to get big. I went to a Doctor to get tested for low T with the hope of getting steroids. He said no and so for the next two years I started the long hard journey of getting big. I lifted 7 days a week and basically only ate stir-fry, brown rice, cut up vegetables with meat and protein powder 6-7 times a day. I only did heavy free-weights and compound exercises, like bench, dead lift, squats.

Well I did end up getting very strong but not all that big after those two years. I also had an injury. I worked out with a bro-science guy at the time, who always had some advice on how to lift. Well during a heavy dead lift I listened to his advice on how I should keep my back perfectly straight and I ended up injuring myself very badly.

Now, 10 years later I am much bigger than I ever was. To me it makes no sense to take all these powders, creatines, loud rock music blaring in my ears, feeling like I could tear the roof down, and then lift 250 lbs for one set and then sit around for 5 minutes waiting to go at it again. I have so much more energy to give than to lift one time for strength and not have the muscle be completely exhausted. When I lift now I am looking for hypertrophy, pump and feel. What I mainly do are drop sets.

Instead of 250 which I could probably do once, I will lift 200 lbs 8-12 times, then with no rest drop to 190 and another 8-12, then 180, 170, 160.... All the way down the stack. I do this for every exercise and the results have been phenomenal.

I will say this; many, many people out lift me. I've had a woman get on a squat machine after me and with great ceremony add many weights to what I was lifting, yesterday a somewhat scrawny 18 year old kid really made a point to move the pin from my 100 lbs to his 200 lbs when he worked in on a bench machine. But I can say that very, very few people are working out as hard. Working to failure is brutal, especially with no rest. I am always drenched in sweat, grunting and panting and feeling like I might throw up, never resting, never talking, never on a cell phone.

I try for perfect form and getting blood pumped into the muscle to exhaust it as much as I can. I also work to failure on each and every one of the drops. If I'm at the bottom of the stack and it feels too light but still have energy I will hold a weight in the contracted position, or just blast out 15-20 reps until I am just fully spent.

I say all this because I see lots of post talking about how if your not free squatting you're wasting your time at the gym.

Like Jay Cutler says "It's not how much you can lift, it's how much you look like you can lift." Watch his videos, he uses mostly machines, doesn't even lift through the full range of motion, just isolating and exhausting the muscle. Granted he is moving heavy, heavy weight and with the products he's using he would get huge doing anything.

In my opinion being big is way better than being strong. Like that kid on the bench machine yesterday, no doubt he had strength, but just by looking at him outside of the gym you would never know the hours he spends there. To my mind swollen>strong. I mean we're not doing this to be able to pull a tree stump out of the ground. At least I'm not, I want to look good and have that exhausted and calm feeling throughout the day. Plus you do get strength thrown in as well, it's not all just for show.

None of this is to say you guys doing the compounds are wrong. I just wanted to highlight that you can use machines and light weights at the gym and see results. Also I want to be able to do this for a lifetime. I couldn't imagine my life without lifting. Look at Jack Lalanne, read and watch everything by him. He was lifting two hours a day, everyday, into his nineties and he was also a proponent of good form and little rest. Also there is a guy on youtube, Scooby, in his fifties, who basically only uses a couple of walmart dumbells in his home and that guy is huge. But watch his videos he is working out hard and generally to failure.

I think my point is this. Ask yourself why you are doing this. It's like an idea from the book "Dress for Success." When you wear a suit and tie it isn't necessarily that you feel so much better about yourself, it's that everyone else, from the clerk at the store, to women walking by on the street, treat you in a different manner which makes every interaction feel like you're playing the game on easy mode. Well it's the same with showing your gym results to the world instead of just being able to deadlift 500 lbs in a gym somewhere.

Boulder-sized shoulders and a hulking back bulging through a shirt, will wet more panties than a bloated belly and being able to power lift huge weights. Then again I may be wrong, I often am. Because I stick to myself at the gym I don't get to hear the knowledge of other men about what works and why it works for them. I've just been seeing results with this method.